Wonder
by yodasbitch
Summary: One could say Summer Jones is fairly discontent with her at home life. So when she is offered the chance in the Zenith Program to enhance her telekinetic abilities, what does she have to lose?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of this and it may be slightly OOC! **

**A/N: This will make very little sense if you haven't seen the movie 'Zoom: Academy For Superheroes'! I know that as a good writer I should have the responsibility to make any plot clear to understand, but I felt that fanfiction is really the place where readers go to just read things that they already know the plot for, y'know? So anyway…try to avoid flaming this one, please! I'm not too proud of it and I just would like some constructive criticism! :( **

Zenith Program

United States Department of Defense

Cindy Collins - Age 6

Tucker Williams – Age 12

Summer Jones - Age 16

Dylan West – Age 17

I had always noticed a similarity between madness and gravity. All it took was a little push to get the ball rolling. This, of course, went hand in hand for regular people who went to work and school everyday with no problems. It worked perfectly for the engineers and scientists and doctors and other students, but not for me. No – my gravity was most certainly not affected. This meant that the entire scale was off. The concept of madness and gravity never worked because I was plagued with the inevitable curse of telekinesis. Because of this, the perfect little concept that I had established for myself was no longer solid. I didn't need a little push to get my gravity rolling – I could control it. At first I had the apprehension that I was seeing things, but that notion was quickly scratched as I realized that making an entire apple pie fly from the fridge to my room couldn't have been my imagination. Images of the pastry still stuck in my head, floating seamlessly in the hallway between my room and my parent's room. It was like it had been summoned simply because I had thought of it haphazardly.

When I started 'feeling' things my brain nearly went into hyper drive. My teacher, Mr. Thompson, had been late for class, arriving with his hair disheveled and his eyes bloodshot. It didn't take a fool to know what he had been up to last night. He was the type to suffer in silence; and he was the last person that I would have wanted to share my emotions with. Mr. Thompson was a drunken mess that was hardly maintaining a career and was worse at the subject he was teaching than his students. Unfortunately, his feelings hit me like a bag of bricks that awful Tuesday morning. His sentiments were incredibly depressing – feelings of sorrow, remorse and shame coursed through my veins until I nearly started to bawl. I discovered that heavy emotions were easy to feel, but light emotions like giddiness or pride were harder to catch on to. Mr. Thompson's grief was an example of a strong emotion that my system detected. These strange moments of affinity were disturbing, and that fateful period with Mr. Thompson was one of the longest moments of my life. The man was deeply affected by his divorce, letting alcohol take it's turn on him and allowing himself to be tossed in whatever direction fate threw him in. It was a sorrowful thing was watch, and even worse to feel.

A couple months passed with these strange new abilities of mine, and my parents said nothing until an evening where I decided to have the dishes wash themselves.

"Summer!" My father's baritone echoed throughout the house, and I dropped my pencil to respond to his calling. The math homework that I had abandoned hadn't been too capturing anyhow. I had expected dad to be angry, upon arriving downstairs, but instead I was greeted with the two very passive faces of my parents. I froze on the staircase, gripping the banister in fear that this was going to become ugly. I didn't know where the deep-seated trust issues with my parents came from, but I knew that they didn't enjoy my powers. Using them to my advantage was a choice – my choice. They had no right to control my abilities or tell me what to do with them, and as far as I was concerned, the dishes were clean either way.

"-and they want to ask you a couple of questions." I hadn't realized that my mother had been speaking to me, amidst my train of thought.

"Who?" My voice sounded false, even to my own ears.

"Some research associates from a military base down South." My father coughed, hands in his pockets. It was clear that he was beginning to enjoy this less and less. "They want you to go down there for a couple of months to train."

"Oh." I muttered, releasing my ironclad grip on the stairwell and trekking into the kitchen, hoping to find food in the fridge. I wasn't planning to take a trip down to Nevada anytime soon, and it wasn't going to change just because some weird scientists wanted me there. I wasn't about to be nitpicked like an alien for the pleasures of researchers.

"Summer." My mother called me back, and I stopped to face her. There was something in her tone – something wasn't right. There was something that my parent's weren't telling me. "We really think you should go."

_What? _

"I think it'd be good, y'know, experience wise." My father grunted, hands still in his pockets. It was like he didn't know where else to put them. I had been hoping that my parents would eventually be able to wrap their heads around the fact that I wasn't normal, but of course I had no such luck. They were sending me away. And when my parents wanted something – they got it.

"Why?" I sounded hurt, abandoned. Granted, I had every right to be when my parents had informed me that they didn't exactly want me at the house.

"Well, you've been…" My mother trailed off, hands awkwardly twisting around each other as if in search of an answer to my question.

"You've been disturbing." My father sighed, finally taking his blasted hands out of his pockets and placing them on his hips. "The school's complained a couple times, Summer. This is getting out of hand."

"Blasting cheerleaders with lunch food isn't a good way to solve your social issues." My mother added. I still didn't know how she had found out about that particular incident a couple weeks ago, but I focused on glaring at the floor.

"Summer?" A new voice from the foyer greeted me, and my neck snapped up at the sound. There was a man dressed in a dull brown suit and green tie, with large glasses. Another man was sitting on the couch behind him in a black suit and sunglasses. I was vividly reminded of the Matrix, and was suddenly reluctant to be left alone in a room with these two strange men.

"If you don't mind, we'd love to ask you a few questions." The man did his best to sound like he wasn't in a hurry, but the nervous tapping of his foot gave him away. Deciding that it was best not to anger a seemingly mad scientist, I made my way to the other couch in our living room.

I was nervous; a feeling that I had grown accustomed to in my own house. It was strange that the one place where one should feel safe and protected had become so bizarre and hazardous for me. My leg bounced up and down in a quick rhythm while the man in the brown suit pulled out his clipboard and his pen, introducing himself as Dr. Grant. I assumed that this was an alias.

"How long have you had these abilities, Ms. Jones?"

I stuttered a bit before answering. "A-a couple of months, sir."

Dr. Grant laughed and wrote something down on his clipboard. "You don't have to call me sir, Ms. Jones."

There was a moment of silence, and I briefly speculated if his colleague was going to say anything. Perhaps he was there for safety reasons – like if I decided to attack Dr. Grant over here by whipping a pie at his head.

"How strong would you say your telekinetic abilities are?"

My eyebrows pulled together as I realized that I didn't know the answer to that question. I hadn't tried to move big things like cars or furniture. I had begun with baby steps, just experimenting with pencils or rulers or bottles of shampoo in the shower. The pie incident – along with the spraying of the cheerleaders with different colours of meatloaf – was totally unexpected. I had let me emotions get the best of me, whether it had been hunger or anger, and obviously that held a connection with the telekinesis in my brain. "I don't know."

"Alright, and would you be interested in a special course to further enhance and solidify your abilities?" Dr. Grant sounded like he was reading these questions directly off of an application website.

I blinked twice, remembering what my parents had said about my unstable nature and my apparent 'disturbing' behavior. I briefly gazed into the kitchen where they were talking quietly, and I caught eyes with my mother. Her glance did not reassure me. "Sure."

"Wonderful." Dr. Grant didn't actually seem that thrilled. "Just a one more question here – a lot of the kids whom we met with said that they suffered from social oppression or persecution. Do you feel this way?"

I felt like I was at a therapist. I wasn't sure whether to tell him the absolute truth or an absolute lie. There were always going to be mean people in the world, and it wasn't like this special program was going to help defend me against them. But it wasn't as if I was going to lie to Dr. Grant to stunt his research. He was merely asking recruiting questions to better filter the kids to enter his program. "Yes."

Dr. Grant looked at me for a long while until smiling unsurely. "Thank you so much for your time, Ms. Jones. We'd love to see you at the audition for the Zenith Program."

* * *

The audition was at a rented out gymnasium downtown. It was old and smelt like rotten socks. There wasn't much space, except for a large area in the middle where I assumed us 'contestants' were supposed to perform. A long table was set up with three seats on the end, and there was a bench where a couple of kids were already waiting. I sighed and shook off my nerves, going to take a seat. I had come by bus since my parents had refused to drive me, and had nothing besides my wallet and phone. I waited on the bench, watching more and more children trickle in, seemingly just as unsure as I had been a couple minutes ago. When some of the boys and girls came in I could sense a great amount of tension or nerve amongst them. Others were completely at ease, while some were nearly jittering with fear. Amongst all of the kids coming in to the gym, one of them caught my eye. I recognized him – the tall longhaired boy who I shared school with. I had no idea that he had developed powers. As far as I had known, he was just as normal as everyone else. I strongly believed that the reason we were all recruited here wasn't because we were special – it was because we were 'different'.

The familiar boy's eyes met mine and he seemed to recognize my face. He nodded and smiled at me, before coming to sit. "You're Summer, right?"

I nodded fervently, not wanting to admit to him that I had no idea what his name was. I had seen him around in some of my classes, but never bothered to introduce myself. It seemed like as soon as I got to know people, they drifted away. Disassociating myself from other human beings was a step I had taken long ago.

"I'm Dylan." He held out a hand, sensing that I wasn't one for speaking. I shook it firmly.

"I'm Summer - nice to meet you."

"We go to the same school." Dylan clarified, fixing me with a look that I couldn't describe. I nodded again.

We both waited in silence, watching the rest of the kids appear and take seats on the bench that had been set out. Soon enough, four security guards appeared with a man and a woman, both in long white coats. They took a seat at the table near the front of the gym, ignoring at least twenty pairs of eyes glued on them. After a couple minutes of rustling papers and hushed whispers, the woman with thick-rimmed glasses and black hair spoke.

"It's nice to see so many of you here – thanks for taking the first steps into the Zenith Program initiative. We're glad to see you're all so interested."

"We'd like to begin by calling your names in alphabetical order," The man continued, not missing a beat, and it took me awhile to recognize him as Dr. Grant - the awkward scientist who had come to my house. "And have you come in the middle here to show us what you can do."

I nudged Dylan on the arm, motioning to Dr. Grant. "Have you seen him before?"

"Yeah." Dylan nodded, eyes fixed on the man. "He came to my house."

"Same. Do you know what this is?" I looked around at the other children, wondering what kinds of mutations were configured into their systems. Each one of us was clearly handpicked out of a pile for this program; we must have been pretty damn different from everyone else if they managed to track us down so easily.

"I dunno, they told me that I should come if I needed help."

"Yeah." I nodded, remembering Dr. Grant's proposal to me as well. He had underlined the fact that I was troubled with my abilities, if not a little confused by them, and was offering this program as relief.

We quieted again, watching the kids get called up. It was weird at first, watching all of these strange abilities being performed like some kind of circus act. There was a girl who could blink extremely fast, a boy who could hover an inch off the ground and a tiny blonde girl with super strength. I was beginning to feel like my powers weren't very special at all until a boy who called himself 'Jupiter' came to the front and center. I covered my mouth and nose as soon as I discovered exactly why he called himself that. After a couple more abilities were exhibited, I heard a familiar name.

"Summer Jones."

I froze for a second before Dylan gave me a gentle nudge, and then I was on my feet heading towards the center of the gym. I wracked my brain for something that I could show the scientists as an example of my power – all of the objects in my range seemed too heavy. I cursed myself for not thinking of anything while entranced by the other 'superpowers' on display. Dr. Grant gave me a smile and a nod, motioning for me to begin whenever I was ready, and I spotted several pens lying on the table beside him. I had only lifted several objects simultaneously once before, and that was last October when the Halloween candy I was handing out became extremely interesting when arranged in different aero formations.

I took a breath and wrung my hands together nervously at my sides, focusing on the pens and willing them to move for me. It was strange when I thought about it – the connection between my brain and the objects was stronger than I thought. I could almost feel each and every pen on it's own – all of the ridges and inks and springs and other components coming together to form the writing utensil. Since my objects were clear and right in front of me, levitating them towards me was not a gigantic challenge at all. I clasped my hands together and felt my eyebrows pull into a frown when I made different shapes with the pens. Being able to manipulate pure matter simply by your will was a gift that I didn't necessarily appreciate at all times. Sure, I saw the greatness in being able to bend gravity your way, but sometimes the loopholes in life bothered me. Newton's theory was invalid to; matter was my toy – and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"Thank you, Ms. Jones." Dr. Grant snapped me out of my trance, and I set down the gadgets neatly on the desk beside him again.

I swallowed as I shuffled back to my spot beside Dylan on the bench, not meeting his eyes at all and suddenly finding my dirty converse very interesting. I felt his discreet eyes on me until his name was called, at which point he got up and my eyes tracked him. I was curious to see what kind of powers he had, especially after having gone to school with him for several years.

As soon as Dr. Grant gave him the signal and the dark haired woman gave him a smile, he disappeared. Just like my pens, I couldn't see him anymore, and I had to search all of my connections in the room just to find that he was in the exact same place that he had been before – except for the fact that he wasn't there. There was no Dylan. He was invisible. A grin spread over my face as I felt the astonishment of the scientists. Perhaps they hadn't seen him perform his powers first hand yet?

When Dylan came to sit back down, I could feel a sense of palpable relief from him. It was best described as the feeling of letting out a long breath one had been holding for a very long stretch of time. There was also a quieted amount of stress in his persona, something that was put on by a personal occurrence.

"That was cool." I grinned, turning to look at him.

"Yeah? I think your power is awesome." He smiled at my compliment, the whites of his teeth making their first appearance.

I nearly laughed, but it suddenly occurred to me that nobody had ever uttered those words to me. Every single time I had been caught using my telekinesis, there was nothing positive to say. It seemed like everyone had been trying to discourage me all along. It gave me several reasons to distrust Dylan's statement. I wasn't used to compliments, whether they were about my powers, grades or appearance. "Really?"

He nodded. "I think it's hot."

"Thanks." I could feel the blush begin to rise in my cheeks. _That _was certainly something that I was not accustomed to. My experience with boys was very limited, if not nonexistent. I hadn't gotten around a lot, mainly because of my strict father and overprotective mother. There were a couple boys in the past that had shown interest, but my self-confidence was never high enough to believe that they actually wanted me. So after shutting myself away for a couple years and building up resilience against my own conscience, Dylan's comment was taken as a major positive stride. Someone was interested in me! Me – Summer Jones, the weird mutant freak with no friends and a dopey family.

No more words were shared between Dylan and I while the last couple of kids got up to showcase their abilities, and when the scientists lined up at the door to shake everyone's hand Dylan turned to me. "Do you wanna go out sometime?"

I was taken aback by the simple phrase. It was one thing to accept that he had complimented me, but to go so quickly from one step to the next was strange. My brain almost couldn't cope with the speed. Perhaps locking myself in my room for so long had caused some social disorder that I didn't know about.

_No wonder the cheerleaders call you a freak. _The little voice in my head chastised. _You probably look like a heroin addict. _

**_Shut up. _**I nearly bit off my lip in frustration, and I realized that Dylan was still waiting upon my response.

"Yeah, that would be nice." I nodded and tried to smile without grimacing. This wasn't exactly a good time for my pessimism to be coming back.

"Alright, cool." Dylan beamed, showing off his perfectly white teeth again. I was almost jealous. No matter how many times I brushed or flossed or combed my hair or how much makeup I applied, it always seemed like I was as dull as an old crayon. Not to mention that my hair was the most hideous shade of orange, and it was hard to find anything that went along with it. I was thankful that it was straight, at the very least.

When we reached the front entrance where we had previously entered in about an hour ago, Dr. Grant shook my hand first. "Thank you so much for coming, Ms. Jones."

I shook his hand and nearly shocked myself from the amount of emotion that coursed through his fingertips. He was positively flowing with excitement and ecstasy. I muted out the rest of his speech and instead focused on the loads of feelings that were being transferred from his hand to my brain. It was breathtaking to feel what his mind was going through at the moment – Dr. Grant was positively joyous. The woman, on the other hand, was more subdued in her passion. There was definitely a buzz in her brain, but in those few seconds that passed by almost in slow motion, I could feel elation tingling away in some distinct corner of her cerebral system.

So when Dylan and I walked out of the old smelly gym together and breathed in the normal air once again, I had to wonder what made those doctors feel so special. Was it because of the apparent 'massive' turnout they had today? Perhaps they had discovered some kind of cure for something that I didn't know about. But I didn't get a chance to elate further on the topic, because Dylan was offering me a ride home, and I was accepting it.


	2. Chapter 2

The last place that I was expecting to be brought to was Area 52.

I had heard of Area 51, but apparently the base in Southern Nevada wasn't enough for the United States Government, so they built another Area, dutifully dubbing it Area 52. The kids who had passed the audition now had to present their abilities again to a row of three judges. I was vividly reminded of a talent contest, and I was dubious at the relation of our powers being judged and marked like they were some kind of skill that anyone could learn. I always thought that if you had something negative to say about someone's abilities, you should at least have some constructive criticism. And in a world of government science like Area 52, I could only hope that this base was filled with constructive criticism. I didn't think that I could take any more blatant cruelty.

Thankfully, Dylan had made it through the first audition as well, so I wasn't alone in our trip to this stranded military base. There were several other faces on the bus that I recognized – the strong six-year-old girl and the expandable boy, as well as the African American girl who could blink with supersonic speed and 'Jupiter the gas giant'. We had been told to pack bags for at least a month – not that all of us were going to be there for that long, but a couple of us would be. I had packed several sets of clothes, my school supplies, toiletries, my stuffed animals and last but definitely not least – my music. Music was quite possibly the best thing that could have ever happened to me – it helped me feel better when I was feeling like microwaved shit, helped get me busy when I was bored, and helped motivate me in times of stress. It was my savior.

My parent's bitter goodbyes were still fresh in my mind. They had gone on and on about how they couldn't 'handle' the stress of having a child who couldn't use her powers properly, and how it was a good thing that she would get the training she needed. Personally, I believed that they just wanted to get rid of me for a while so that they didn't need to deal with the pressure of the entire neighborhood's eyes on me.

Once arriving at the base, I fingered the thin chain around my neck nervously. It had been the last present my parents had given me before I departed in the taxi, claiming that they didn't put a charm on it because it was a metaphor. The cruel reasoning was that it was 'similar to my life' – I would decide what to put on it and whether or not to decorate it with different things. I nearly scoffed, letting my emotions get the best of me, and then shoved those thoughts out of perspective when the guards instructed us to exit the bus. It was odd to walk through the halls in jeans and sweaters while everyone rushing around you was either in a lab coat or in uniform.

"This way!" A guard escorted us into a holding pen, where there were rows of benches. "You can leave your bags here," He pointed to a corner. "And we will momentarily begin the session."

We all dumped our bags on top of each other, eager to rid ourselves of the weight. We waited for a couple of minutes making small talk – there were around fourteen of us in the bullpen, and it wasn't until a quarter after three and the guard showed us to the main room through a small entrance way. I nervously gazed around upon entering the larger area. The walls were blue and yellow, and there were glass observation areas on either side of what seemed to be a performance room. Guards littered the exits, and there were two women in white lab coats with strange devices tucked into their hands.

I felt like an animal in a cage.

Placing my hands on my hips and turning in circles, I viewed any possible escape exits. It was a bit ridiculous, really – planning an escape from a military base, but I wasn't about to take any chances from this apparently 'safe' facility. It wasn't until I heard a buzzer and three adults came waltzing into the room that I came to my senses.

"Lovely to see you all again!" Dr. Grant had a clipboard in one hand and a glass of water in the other, and I could still sense that feeling of eagerness amongst him and the familiar black haired woman. The other man, however, decorated in jeans and showing off a racy tattoo, seemed less enthusiastic. I sensed that his self-confidence had taken a large blow because of a loss, but I couldn't place what it was. I could also sense a fair amount of unpleasant-ness seeping from him, almost like he had distanced himself and become bitter for the same reason his self-confidence was low.

I leaned forward from my spot on the bench, watching as the first couple of kids were called up in alphabetical order just like last time. Hana, the girl with the supersonic blinking, went first this time. The three researchers (I had clear doubts about the second man being involved in anything research-wise) didn't seem too impressed, and wrote notes in their folders before stamping a red button on her profile. I assumed that this was the rejected button.

Next up was Dylan, who, with his laid-back attitude and gum in between his teeth, did not make a great impression on the second man. At first I was worried that he wouldn't impress all three of them, but when he disappeared, he got a blue stamp on his profile. That must have been the accepted button…

After Dylan, the oriental boy with the mucus mutation went, spraying the unfortunate second man with tiny paper spit balls. None of the judges were impressed, so he got the red button treatment. Cindy, the adorable six year old with terrifying super strength, came up and began to sing the alphabet after the Asian boy.

"Stop that!" The grumpy man leaned forward. "You're singing the alphabet – that's not a power! And your voice is average…it's not super."

"It is, too, super!" Cindy objected, and proceeded to throw the table across the room. It smashed against the opposite wall, created an utter mess and a loud noise. Dr. Grant called for another table, and the audition proceeded as quickly as it had stopped. I was next.

I took a big gulp, and again my mind was completely wiped as to what the hell I was going to levitate for them this time. The pens were an easy fix last week – but today the table was cleared of all objects besides three files and three glasses of water. So I decided to take a chance and break one of the glasses. Bringing it over to float right in front of my gaze was easy – the water was liquid and easy to manipulate, but now that I had it in front of my face, I didn't know where to throw it. I settled for the far wall on my left, and leaned back as I forced it to propel itself over to the blue wall. Some of the scientist's eyes followed it, and when the glass shattered, one immediately grabbed a handy mop.

I gave the grumpy man a glare as soon as I realized that he was humming to tease me. Clearly he didn't approve of my breaking of Dr. Grant's water glass.

"I see things." I tried to suggest.

"Do you see dead people?" He was making fun of me again, and I debated playing along, but refused because of my frustration.

"I see that you suffer from a massive inferiority complex." I scoffed, done with his little antics. He didn't impress me for shit. If he wanted to be the whiny little teenager, I would let the irony play out just like it was supposed to.

When I walked back to my spot I didn't see what they stamped on my sheet, and quite frankly – I didn't care. If the grumpy man was supposed to an example of what people were like at Area 52, I didn't want to stay here for any reason. I also refused to meet anyone's eyes as I sat back down, including Dylan's, who for some reason was staring at me again. We still hadn't gotten together after last week's audition.

The next contestant after me was 'Jupiter', and in all honesty I didn't think that he had a very good chance of making it in this race. In fact, I was pretty sure that after his 'audition', the grumpy man stamped his profile far too many times. After him was Tucker, who blew up his foot first, and then his head. I vaguely acknowledged his black stamp, and then nearly vomited when the snot kid came up to present his ability. This African American boy had an incredible superpower that was far beyond useless. It was catastrophically useless. Unless he wanted to repel every human being on the planet, I didn't see any use for his snot painting the walls. Poor Dr. Grant got the worst of his ability though – there was green snot covering every inch of his face.

The four of us who were approved – Cindy, Tucker, Dylan and I – were led into a separate room than the rest of the kids. There was a big blue wall, kind of like the background for mug shots, and labeled 'Area 52 – U.S. Department of Defense'. There were men dressed in total white that handed us orange jumpsuits, and gave us areas to change in. They then proceeded to take our measurements,

"Looks great on you." Dylan noted, motioning to my waist.

I blushed again, unsure of whether or not he was being serious, and grimaced. "I don't like it."

"No – you're rockin' it." He grinned, and the laughter couldn't contain itself. I let it bubble out of my throat, complimenting him on his hideous jumpsuit as well.

After a couple minutes, we were led into a room with tables and chairs on either side, and took seats on all four. I pulled out several books from my bag as well as a notebook; preparing to take whatever time I could to write a very angry letter to my parents as well as study for my math course. My parents had informed the school that I was away on training – 'fixing my problem' as they had to dutifully noted – and apparently I was to be forgiven for uncompleted work. This didn't stop me from studying while I was away. I would be damned if I was going to fall behind on my studies just because I was being deployed to 'enhance' my powers.

I felt a sudden change of matter in front of me, but continued writing as soon as I recognized it to be Dylan. He materialized to sit on a backwards chair, still chewing on his gum. He had done this trick several times to me before, materializing on the plane ride over, as well as the bus trip.

"That is getting so old." I fingered the chain around my neck, still not looking up at him and continuing to write my letter.

"Well, considering you can read my mind, I don't have many options." Dylan retorted, crossing his arms.

"I can't read your mind," I blurted, finally looking up at him. "I just feel stuff." I wiggled my fingers as if they were an example of what I could do. "And you could stop hitting on my entirely." I didn't know why those specific words had come out of my mouth, and as soon as I did I was afraid of their consequence – Dylan was a really nice guy, and I didn't want us to stop what we had. Perhaps I had pushed the wrong button?

"No, I-I can't do that." Dylan smiled slyly. "You and I are destiny."

I frowned and grinned at the same time, again unsure of whether or not he was serious. What I found with Dylan was that his personality would change from being completely humorous one minute, to being very serious and genuine in the other. But before I had a chance to retort with my own sober phrase, Ms. Holloway walked into the room with the grumpy man.

"Children, I would like to formally introduce you to a very great man, Mr. Jack Shepard." She gave the grumpy man, now dubbed Jack, some leeway, and he let out a very large belch.

"Sorry," He made a face, and I gave Dylan a worried side-glance. "I don't remember eating that."

"Great man or a washed-up loser?" Dylan muttered, getting up out of his seat to go back to his original table. I wanted to tell him to sit back down – tell him that I enjoyed his presence, but I wasn't sure how to convey my message. So I let him go.

"That's a fine line - what a nice kid." Jack wasn't too thrilled about being called a loser, as it seemed, and he took a stab at Dylan. "Is the long hair and the James Dean angst just a package with you?"

Dylan twirled his pencil around in his hands, ending the momentary feud. Perhaps he was accustomed to being called those kinds of names, just like I was accustomed to being called a freak and a weirdo.

"Mr. Shepard is uniquely qualified to be your new instructor," Ms. Holloway butted in, sensing the rising tension. "And now he'll tell you why." Again, she gave Jack some space to come up to the front of the room and introduce himself.

"What?" Jack suddenly realized that he was on the spot, giving Ms. Holloway an alarmed look and then taking initiative. "Oh, yeah – hey kids, do you have any idea what you're doing here or why?"

Cindy immediately raised her hand, the eager six-year-old ready to answer any question like she was back in her elementary school. "Me!" She chanted, wiggling her fingers in the air. Jack tried to ignore her at first, but it was evident that she wasn't going to give up.

"Y-yeah, okay. You." Jack motioned for her to answer him.

"We were brought here in super secret, because we were selected out of a huge group of kids because we're really special." She smiled, her pigtails bouncing around as she smiled up at the uninterested Jack. "And they needed special kids for a special course. That's what Ms. Holloway said."

"I don't think I've ever heard anybody use that many 'specials' in a sentence." Jack rubbed his eyes, as if he couldn't believe that he was in a military institution talking to a six-year-old with super strength about why there were four reluctant kids sitting in a room together.

"She," Dylan pointed out, motioning to Ms. Holloway with his pencil. "Actually worked it in there one more time than Collins did. But it's all a lie – we're here 'cause we're different."

"Dylan!" I tried to stop him before things got out of hand. I didn't want Cindy's confidence shattering like mine before the age of 10. Deep in my heart I knew that it was true – our genetic systems were completely alternate from normal human beings, and there were several different words for what we were. Mutants, supers, freaks - or just plain different. It wasn't our choice whether or not we were accepted, and Dylan wasn't making it any easier.

"We're not different!" Cindy argued, and Tucker butted in as well, telling Dylan to 'chill out'.

"You can pick up a car and you're six – how different does it get?" Dylan narrowed his eyes, leaning forward in his seat to stare at Cindy.

"Don't tell her that!" I snapped at him, gripping my pencil furiously. I couldn't believe that he was berating a six-year-old about her differences when she needed to be building up her confidence.

"Don't be a jerk, man!" Tucker held his snack in one hand, stopping his eating to retaliate against Dylan. We were all trying to protect something priceless – the confidence of a six-year-old girl, who no one wanted to see broken at such a young age.

"Wh – Tucker! I'm not being a jerk!" Dylan was still stuck in the reality of the situation, obviously feeling like he had to share his sense of pessimism with us.

Our anger grew and grew, each of us getting more frustrated at the fact that Dylan wouldn't back down on his accusations. It seemed like everything was getting more and more out of hand until a loud whistle blasted throughout the room. I covered my ears in pain, realizing that Ms. Holloway had been the one to produce the awful noise.

"Sorry." She apologized, and Jack was once again given time to talk.

"Okay, maybe this'll help." He continued. "I spent a lot of time here at _Camp Secret_, when I was just about your age - and you know what? It pretty much ruined my life."

Dylan spread his arms triumphantly, while Ms. Holloway tried to stop him before things got out of hand again. I looked back at her in doubt; unsure of which adult was telling the truth. If this facility was going to 'ruin my life', I wasn't sure that I wanted to be here at all.

"Hey," Jack went on to say. "The military would like you to be, just like me. You've got to work hard and focus – but most of all, most important – you're gonna need massive doses of Gamma-13 emissions. So let's wheel in that big machine and zap the little guys, huh?"

Several of us turned and looked at Ms. Holloway for confirmation, nervous fear creeping over our minds. If this was true – I was busting out of this joint tomorrow.

"No – that's not true." Ms. Holloway was getting flustered with Jack's accusations. "Mr. Shepard – hallway!"

"Right! Let's go to the hallway!" Jack waved an arm and followed the female scientist out the door. "You guys wanna slip into that lead underwear – you wanna protect your privates." Jack touched each of our tables as he left. I was speechless at his words, blown away by the amount of anger and blatant disrespect he'd shown to this facility. There must have been a reason why he felt this way, otherwise he wouldn't have minded coming here at all.

After a couple minutes of after-shock, we were instructed to gather our bags and follow one of the guards to the dormitories. There was no sign of Jack or Ms. Holloway, and I assumed that she had taken him somewhere private to scold him on his actions. Even I could see that his words were unacceptable. We were kids – for Christ's sake! If he was supposed to be our trainer we were all screwed. I sighed and continued to lug my bag behind the formally dressed guard, already exhausted out of my mind.

"These will be your living quarters – change rooms are down the hall to the left, and the cafeteria is open twenty four hours a day." The man turned abruptly on his spot and left the quarters, leaving us with six sleeping pods and dimmed lights. It seemed more like a motel than a living area.

"I want this one!" Cindy scampered to one of the pods, choosing the one in the middle. "Summer!" She called, her little hands reaching out as if to beckon me.

I gave her a grin and followed her to her newly dubbed dormitory, finding that the inside was much more spacious that I had imagined. There was a side table, a bench, a comfortable looking bed and a closet. All in all, one could say that Cindy was happy. She hopped up and down on the bed, bag lying on the floor, forgotten.

"You've gotta unpack, Cindy." I grabbed her bag and set it on the bench, unzipping it and handing her the stuffed animals inside. I helped her with the rest of her clothing, handing her the costumes and onesies that she had dutifully placed inside her duffle bag. It was nice that she was confident enough to wear these sorts of things around – I wished that I had her confidence. It was hard for me to pick a different pair of pants to wear to school on some days.

"Alright, I'll come back after I'm done unpacking, okay?" I gave Cindy another smile, dutifully taking on the big sister role. She nodded eagerly, once again jumping on the bed.

Tucker had taken the pod besides Cindy's, and Dylan had situated himself across from all of us, so I chose the pod next to Collin's. I wanted to make sure that she was safe – in case she had any nightmares or problems during her sleep. There were several things in my bag that I wasn't sure I should take out – my wallet and phone stayed safely in the interior pockets of my duffel, but the rest of my things splayed out neatly across the small room. The amount of stuffed animals I had brought even outdid Cindy's. It was a bit absurd – the fact that a little girl had less stuffed animals then I did.

Speaking of which, I travelled back to Cindy's room to take her to dinner. It was around six o'clock, which meant that somewhere up North, my parents would be preparing for dinner without me. They would have to set the table by themselves, take out the dishes and load the dishwasher, prepare themselves tea and go to sleep knowing that they had sent their daughter away. There was a deep satisfaction in the pit of my stomach that was suddenly shattered when my conscience reminded me that perhaps they weren't guilty about sending me away because I didn't matter to them. This thought alarmed me, and I crammed it away to a far corner of my mind where I knew it wouldn't bother me for a while.

Cindy and I found our way to the cafeteria, picking up food and joining Tucker and Dylan at one of the tables. Out of the one solitary window that the facility provided in the cafeteria, I could see the stars twinkling above the desert. Once again I was struck with the feeling of an animal in a cage. It was sickening, but the fact that there were three other people suffering just as much as I was made the situation a little bit better.

Bored with the unappealing broccoli and meatloaf, I tossed it around my plate and focused on the brainwaves of each and every personnel sitting in the cafeteria. Many of the emotions were plain and mundane, like a brown carpet that was moldy with age. Others, however, were jumpy and rapid, like a river that was flowing too fast for it's own good. I tried to target those thoughts, perhaps detect what was making them feel this way, and I managed to catch on to a couple voices. One woman sitting on the far end of the cafeteria was talking to her colleague about an experiment she was running with Aviatory genes, and a man sitting directly behind us was beside himself with delight that his usually frozen bacteria had quadrupled in growth overnight. Another man a couple tables away on the left was filled with pride that he had been nominated for the technician of the year award. I grinned into my food, letting the satisfaction and alleviation bleed into my brain.

Across the table, Dylan caught my eye and gave me a knowing smile.


	3. Chapter 3

Area 52, as it turned out, was bigger than I had originally thought. I had made the grave mistake of thinking that it was a mere three stories high, and that there was no way on earth that they could fit a pool or three gymnasiums into the mountain side. I was wrong. Dylan, Tucker, Cindy and I got lost about ten times before a security guard finally straightened us out to the lecture room we were supposed to report to.

"Finally!" Ms. Holloway spread her arms in relief as we took our seats in the classroom. "I'm so sorry about that kids – I'll remember to get you guys a map next time."

On each of the tables there was a collection of comic books that read 'Zoom' across the top. Each of them had superheroes dressed in red, posed in triumphant stances while destroyed buildings sat behind them. I hated these stereotypes. The fact that iconic superpowers like flight and speed were glorified, when the meeker powers like animal translation or scribing-by-mind were played down. I certainly didn't see any comic books about people who could talk to animals – heck, you could write an entire series about someone who saved the dodos from extinction! But no – Marvel and DC had to stick with their most popular heroes.

"No! Tucker, wait!" Ms. Holloway cried out, and I was snapped out of my trance to realize that Tucker was opening one of the plastic sleeves on the comic books. "Do not touch this! This is a first edition – don't even touch the sleeve! Now, everyone please put on your pH balancing anti-bacterial gloves." She held up pairs of white gloves that no one took, and we all began to take the comics out of the sleeves to read them.

"Or not." Ms. Holloway muttered as she gazed at Tucker's cheesy fingers opening the special edition Zoom comic.

"Wait," I opened my own set of comics and looked up at Marsha, confused. "Why are you giving us these?"

"Well, I'm not giving them to you. I'm showing them to you because yesterday you asked me why Mr. Shepard was a great man. Well – this is why he's a great man."

"'Cause he collects comic books?" Dylan's sarcastic tone filtered through the room. I couldn't stifle my laughter.

"No," Ms. Holloway leaned towards him, her white hands grasping a comic book tightly between them. "Because he is the comic book. Mr. Shepard is Captain Zoom! And these comics are a record of the incredible things that Zoom and his amazing team did to protect mankind."

From the corner of my eye I could see Tucker and Cindy's mouths drop open.

"He was the leader of the Zenith team," Marsha continued; glad to see the two youngest faces in the room dropping in disbelief. Finally the name of the program we were attending made sense. "Faster that the flash, quicksilver and superman all together!"

"No way!" Tucker looked around the room for confirmation, to which Dylan snorted in disbelief. I turned around to see him flipping through a comic book, pencil in between his teeth. I could safely say that I had never been so attracted to someone that strongly than in that very moment.

"Way." Ms. Holloway confirmed, and before she could stop them, Cindy and Tucker were out the door to go find Jack, recently dubbed as 'Zoom'.

"Stop, wait!" She cried out after them, and then sighed, beginning to collect the comic books. "Oh well – that was the lesson or today anyway. You can go join them if you want."

Dylan and I looked at each other reluctantly, but then rose to our feet and proceeded out the doorway to follow Tucker and Cindy at a much slower pace. Thankfully the cafeteria wasn't too far away, and upon arriving at the scene, we found Jack lecturing the two youngest participants of the Zenith program on why they weren't special.

"No matter what people told you around here, you're not superheroes." He finished a gulp of Oatmeal and put down his paper.

"We're superheroes?" Tucker looked at Cindy incredulously, and they shared a handshake. I didn't know when they had become such good friends, but it was nice that Cindy was so comfortable here.

"You're definitely white kids, I'll tell you that." Zoom made a face and leaned back, as if threatened by their antics.

Cindy raised her hand again, something that she was accustomed to doing because of elementary school. She made a little noise to grab Zoom's attention, and he called on her.

"Do we get names? And costumes?" She questioned him eagerly.

"I'm sorry – w-what's your name again?" Zoom pointed a finger at her.

"Cindy Collins, age six." She stated proudly, pigtails swinging again as she recited the phrase that she had grown so used to speaking.

"Cindy Collins, age six," Jack repeated. "This isn't a parade, or a girl's scout jamboree or some sleepover! This is a military installation! You get military stuff! Functional wear." As if to prove his point, he raised a finger and began to vibrate it. I watched his tiny appendage move back and forth so quickly it blurred and sent off steam. "You see that? I used to be able to move my entire body that fast. So they put me in a polycarbonate silicone suit, so that way I wouldn't vibrate out of my clothes."

"Mm!" Cindy raised her hand again, and my brain intercepted a jolt of annoyance from Jack's brain.

"You've got to stop doing that." He complained, fixing Cindy with a stare.

"Can my superhero costume be a tutu?" She tilted her head to the side, but Zoom wasn't buying it.

"Are you even trying to listen to me?"

"So what are they gonna make us do?" Dylan asked from behind me, arms crossed and frown stretched across his face. I could sense a flow of steady disappointment coming from him.

"I dunno dude," Jack leaned back in his seat, drawling and teasing Dylan. "Lemme think about that for just a minute…"

"And you're supposed to be training us." Dylan scoffed. "Gimme a break – you can barely tie your shoes. Come on, let's let Mr. Zoom finish his oatmeal."

I placed my hands on my hips and gave Jack a face as well, following Dylan out the door to the cafeteria and ignoring whatever else Jack had to say. Cindy grabbed my hand as we left, and I pulled her along until we reached our living quarters again. We had been told that later in the afternoon we were supposed to report to the large area we had first arrived in for a training session. So naturally, Cindy wanted to dress up. Around ten minutes later I found myself sitting on one of the couches, fixing Collins' hair.

"Make it pretty!" She adjusted the tiara on her head to make sure that it was straight, and I twisted the last ringlet into her hair. Dylan watched from the other couch, feet up on the coffee table. I tried to avoid his gaze to stop myself from blushing. I didn't know what had come over me, but I had noticed that when he looked at me there was a tingling sensation in my fingertips and toes. It was a foreign feeling, and so I tried to avoid his gaze when he watched me do things. I could always feel when someone's eyes were on me – perhaps that was the reason I had been so uncomfortable at school.

"Cindy, you're going to have to take it off for dinner anyway. You don't want to get stains on it." I patted down the pink puffy sleeves on her dress, admiring the embroidery of her dress.

"I know, but I want to look pretty!"

"You look lovely. Let's go." I held out a hand, and we traveled down to the holding area with Dylan to wait for our instructors. Tucker joined us after a while, and Cindy got called up first. I gave her an encouraging smile, and she let go of my hand to travel to the center of the training room. I watched her perform, cringing when she threw the weight through the glass viewing area of the observatory platform to take revenge on one of Jack's hurtful comments to Marsha. It was wonderful that she had been blessed with super strength, but at the wrong time she could cause nothing but problems.

I was called up next, and my training consisted of simple 'm and m' manipulation. It was great fun to watch the colored candies twirled around in the air in a smiley face formation, and it made me laugh when the smiley face would copy my facial expression. Eventually I dropped them in favor of letting the laughter bubble up out of my gut. When I was finished, we were granted freedom for the rest of the evening until around 7:00 when we were planning a secret baseball game with some of the research associates. I had been finishing my letter to my parents in my dorm, trying to decide the best way to let them know that I was unhappy with their parting words to me and how they felt about my powers, when I heard Dr. Grant's voice come over the loudspeaker.

_"__Uh - security, Code Dylan. I repeat, Code Dylan. Thank you."_ The voiceover system shutoff, and I looked up at the intercom speaker, frowning. Dylan? As in our Dylan? Why did he have a security code? What had happened? I ventured outside and looked around – perhaps something had happened at training and he was feeling uncomfortable. It didn't take a fool to see that he was unhappy here. Even if his three other companions didn't mind, it was clear that he was having a bit of a tough time adjusting to Area 52.

"Dylan?" I called out, sensing several other people in my area. My brain started to scan their waves, seeing if there were any particular emotions of frustration or anger that could quite possibly be Dylan. I found only one, several feet away from me. Frowning a bit and concentrating more, I rubbed my temple and tried to find the exact spot that the heat signature was standing in.

Eleven feet to my left.

I turned in that direction, listening for any footsteps or breaths. I slowly stepped towards the spot where my telepathy was locating me to, and stretched out one hand. Invisible fabric touched my fingertips, and I jolted back as Dylan materialized in front of me. For once, he wasn't smiling as he appeared out of thin air. I didn't really know what to say to him – I knew that he didn't like it here, but I wasn't sure what I could do to make him feel better.

"You wanna come to my room?" I offered, motioning to my dorm.

Dylan said nothing, merely placing his hands in his pockets and tucking his bottom lip in his mouth. So I led him into my living quarters, watching him sit timidly down on the bed next to my stuffed animals. I didn't know what to say, so I put Radiohead on shuffle and finished writing my letter beside Dylan. He didn't say anything for a long while, just watched me address the letter, grab an envelope and place it inside. I carefully printed the address on top, making sure that it wasn't in my usual, messy scrawl.

"I hate this place." Dylan eventually muttered after I had placed the letter on my nightstand.

I sat across from him on the bench, watching as he picked up my stuffed elephant. "Everything?" I asked, regarding Loopy the pachyderm being coddled by the 17-year-old boy.

Dylan frowned, not understanding my question. "I mean," I clarified for him. "How much do you not like? Do you hate everything here?"

"Well no," He scoffed, putting Loopy back and instead picking up my stuffed Goofy. "You're here – I can't hate everything."

I blushed, the sides of my mouth curving up into a smile. "Alright, well what else do you like?"

Dylan thought for a while, playing with Goofy's long ears. "Cindy and Tucker…and Ms. Holloway. Dr. Grant is okay."

"How about the food?" I tilted my head, trying to bring out the positive in his situation. Dylan shrugged, and I smirked. The food wasn't great, but it was better than nothing. "Okay, well there are people here that you like, right? Would you rather be at home?"

"Yes."

"Why?" I felt like a psychiatrist.

Dylan had to think for a bit about that question too, which for the record, I thought, was a good thing. This meant that I was bringing up points that he hadn't thought of before. I mapped out my brainwaves once again, forcing it to pick up on any emotions. Dylan was feeling confused, angry, distraught, tense, discouraged and cornered all at once.

"You know, I can feel you doing that." Dylan butted out, shooting me a look. I retracted my little scanner immediately.

"What?"

"When you feel stuff with your brain – I can feel it."

I settled for staring at the ground, our deeper conversation forgotten in favor of this newer topic. I had suspected that Dylan knew I had some sort of telepathy abilities, but I didn't think that he could feel me reaching out to scan things. It was strange – this explained his funny looks every time I mapped out to feel things when I was bored, or when I was looking for a specific person.

"It's like sonar." I tried to explain. "But I didn't know that you could feel it. I'm sorry."

The last thing I wanted to do was bother Dylan and push him away. I didn't need him leaving me like everyone else – there was a chance of a very strong bond between us, and I didn't want to jeopardize that. But unfortunately, my social skills were complete crap and I had no idea what to do when someone was upset with me, so I was hoping that Dylan wasn't about to stand up and yell in my face.

Luckily for me, he did no such thing.

"I'm not mad – it's wicked." His eyes flitted around the rest of my room before landing on me. I gulped.

"T-thank you." I couldn't recall the amount of times he had complimented me. "I wish I could disappear."

"Yeah," He laughed. "It comes in handy."

I understood why he didn't want to be under the scrutiny of nearly twenty pairs of eyes. It was maddening when three people were recording you; five were taking notes and the rest were whispering things to each other. It was like school all over again. I didn't know Dylan too well before the Zenith program had brought us together, but I didn't sense any pent up feelings of resentment inside of him, so it wasn't very possible that he had been bullied. There was also a possibility that he was very forgiving, or that he built his walls up very high. Resentment wasn't always the result from bullying.

"You wanna go get dinner?" Dylan put down Goofy and stood up, staring down at me. It took me a couple seconds to react, realizing that we had both trailed off in thought.

"S-sure." I stammered and stood, following him out of my dormitory.

The walk was silent until we reached the food court, grabbing trays and loading them with food. "You never answered my question." I gripped the tongs in between my fingers and piling salad onto my plate.

"Huh?" Dylan looked over at me, conversation from minutes ago forgotten already.

"Why would you rather be at home than here?" I bit my lip, putting down the salad and fetching a slab of meat. Before leaving, my mother had also lectured me on healthy eating and how I should include all categories of food into my diet.

"Oh," Dylan quieted for a bit and immersed himself in thought until we reached the table, placing ourselves next to Tucker and Cindy. They were already deep in conversation. "No one watches me at home."

That single statement struck a chord in me, and without a thought I was already deep inside his head. There was a double message in there that I didn't want to miss for the world – something that I had overlooked before. Neglect. Dylan's problem wasn't that everyone was bothering him or that he was being hounded to do things that he didn't necessarily want to do – it was the attention in general. He wasn't used to being watched to so frequently. What bothered him was the observation.

"I'm sorry, Dylan." The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I was fearful that he would grow angry and leave. Again, I was wrong.

"Don't be." He shook his head, beginning to eat and resting his elbows on the table.

"But I am," I continued, my brain and my mouth now making no connection. I was speaking purely on emotion. "I'm sorry that your parents ignore you and I wish that I could do something, but there are people who care about you here. Like me, and Cindy and Tucker. And I don't want to see you push people away because you don't think you deserve it. I know you do."

Dylan had stopped chewing, and was now looking at me with a gaze that I couldn't place. I refused to check any brainwaves, instead staying silent with my hands folded underneath the table and food untouched. I wanted the message to sink in and a conspicuous reaction to take place before I could expel my nerves. Unfortunately, no such reaction was provided, and Dylan kept eating. So I ate as well. I wasn't about to starve myself waiting for him to tell me that he understood what I was saying. In fact, it wasn't until we were all putting away our trays that I heard him speak again.

"Summer," He placed his tray on top of the receptacle provided and nudged me. I turned to face him. "Thank you."

I smiled, glad that he had at least taken the dinner hour to think about what I had said. There was, after all, reason behind silence. Was there not?

* * *

It was 8:00 in the morning, and I was utterly exhausted. The baseball game from last night had gone late, as a result of Cindy smashing a window in the glass dome that we had been playing in. It had been great fun up until that point – scientists and security guards had joined in with Jack, Tucker, Cindy, Dylan and I to play a couple rounds. As a result, Cindy had broken the window with her intensive swinging, and we had all been scattered.

"So where're we going?" Tucker turned to Dr. Grant as he led Dylan, Jack and I through the hallways that we still were not accustomed to.

"Oh, you've got combat training tomorrow!" Dr. Grant patted Tucker on the shoulder. "We've gotta get you into some protective gear!"

I frowned in concern, dually noting that 'combat training' probably wasn't what I was expecting. We weren't exactly normal athletes. My fitness level wasn't great, mainly because I didn't feel like getting up and running around my neighbourhood a couple times just to 'get fit'. I much preferred to diet and occasionally go to the gym. Thankfully my family didn't have a history of obesity.

Dr. Grant led us down another hallway, where Cindy joined us, and then we were escorted into what seemed like a lab. There were wielders, gunshot tests and the bitter smell of chemicals in the air. I was reminded that Area 52 was not only a military installation but a research base as well. This was government testing that we were viewing.

"Hey!" Jack suddenly knelt down next to a small robot. "Is that you, Mr. Pibb?" The robot made a small noise of confirmation, and gave Jack a high five.

"Mr. Pibb?" I reached out a hand and touched the robot on the shoulder, curious to see if I could sense any of his memory storage.

"Yeah," Jack continued. "That's the name we gave him. We didn't have any friends down here, so they built us one. He'd go and get us candy, and sodas – that sort of thing." He smiled at the memory, relishing over the little mechanical automation.

I quickly found my way past his most recent storage compartments and tracked down 'Jack Shepard', immediately being hit with warmth and safety in my stomach. "You were nice to him." It wasn't so much that the machine was feeling things – it was the memories and old stored away files that were being translated through telepathy to my body.

"Do you have to touch things to, like, understand them?" Zoom turned to me and asked, seemingly growing curious about my abilities. Each time he found an interest in one of us I would try to remember a different reason as to why he was a bad man, such as the first day we had encountered him.

"Not always." I shot a sideways glance at Dylan, who had his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face.

"What's he thinkin' about now?"

"He thinks you've had an increase in mass…" I trailed off, hiding the smile on my face. Mr. Pibb's calculations over the years had been stored in his old hard drive, and I managed to dig deep enough into his system to find out who had interacted the most with him and his particular calculations on that being.

"Mr. Pibb…" Jack glanced down upon himself, faking insult.

"It's impossible to know what he thinks, Ms. Jones." Dr. Grant chuckled from beside me. "His program is a rudimentary 15 megabyte system – it has no thoughts."

"I suppose you don't have thoughts of what your life would be like if you were a figure skater?" I retorted, already having delved into his mind and retrieved the information I needed. Dr. Grant was a very strange man, but had a good heart nonetheless. His dreams included either winning the Nobel Peace Prize or becoming and Olympic figure skater. I couldn't say that I wasn't surprised.

"Well then," Dr. Grant's shot me a wink, and shifted awkwardly for a moment when he realized that there were five sets of eyes on him. "I guess I'll leave you kids in the capable hands of Jack Shepard."

"You do that, Grant. I'll take care of 'em." He then knelt down again to the robot's level and muttered a couple things to him, some of which I didn't catch because Dylan's eye was holding my attention. He was smiling, perhaps amused by my antics towards Dr. Grant.

Instead of bringing us to get fitted for our gear, Jack decided to take a small detour and 'surprise' us. I wasn't quite sure what his definition of 'surprise' was, but it was guaranteed not to disappoint considering the other shenanigans I had seen him perform. We traveled through the base very quickly, thanks to Jack and his past experiences. He knew this place like the back of his hand.

"Alright, come on guys." Zoom led us down another set of stairs and into what seemed to be a garage area. "Watch your heads."

He instructed Mr. Pibb to open the big metal doors in front of us, embroidered with the Zenith logo and, once again, 'U.S. Department of Defense' in big bolded letters. It was incredibly senseless to place those signs everywhere – the base was obviously guarded by the military. But all of these exasperations were abandoned when the hatchet doors were opened and the lights were flicked on. There were choruses of disbelief, and I felt my mouth drop open at the sight before me. A legitimate UFO sat neatly in between four yellow mechanical arms, steaming and apparently ready to go.

"It's the flying saucer from Area 51!" Tucker exclaimed, throwing his hands up. "It exists!"

"Look at that." I muttered in utter incredulity. Dylan grinned at me and took a step closer towards the aircraft.

"We rebuilt it as best we could when it crash landed in the late 40's." Jack explained.

"It's really awesome!" Tucker spread his arms out, as if he could measure his contentment.

"Yeah, it's amazing." Dylan agreed, crossing his arms. For once, he had no sarcastic comment to go along with his sentence. "Is this what's gonna take us to all of our superhero gigs? I'm gettin' goosebumps."

And there it was. I laughed and tried not to roll my eyes, glad that Dylan was enjoying himself. Eventually, Jack found the key controller for the door at the bottom of the aircraft, and we made it inside. I looked around in awe at all of the strange compartments, feeling my fingers tingle already. There was something peculiar with these mechanics. Of course, it was to be expected that in a flying saucer the controls would be different than from a car or a plane, but I wasn't getting any readings here. My little built in telepathic brain scanner, or mind sonar, as I know referred to it as, refused to collect any data.

I shrugged it off and assumed that perhaps I was tired, so I paid attention to the rest of my team. Jack was handing the controls of the UFO over to Tucker, who most definitely had never driven anything – including a flying saucer – anywhere. Fortunately, we didn't crash land, and Tucker seemed to be having a blast.

"Let's make this thing rock!" He suggested, gazing eagerly through the ocular lens of the space shuttle.

"Yeah," Cindy agreed from my arms. I had taken the little girl in her tutu and placed her by my side, rocking her back and forth so that she didn't get scared. "How do you make it go faster?"

"Faster?" Zoom placed his hands on his hips, stumped. "Therein lies the problem, guys, of the FE-12. We never really figured this thing out – it only goes twenty miles an hour."

"Aww." Cindy whined and pulled away from me to try and look through the ocular lens.

Again, I was struck with the feeling of refusal when I tried to map out my brainwaves. There were no signals, besides the other four bodies in the room plus the robot. The heat signatures were evident, but for the life of me I couldn't pick up on any left behind evidence. I walked over to one of the blue tables at the side of the craft and place both hands on it, tuning out my team and trying to see if I could catch anything from decades ago. All I saw was black.

"Maybe there's less to figure out than there is to understand." I frowned and continued to dig deeper into the color that I had found. It was a loop, really. Complete bullshit. To figure out something was to understand it, and to understand something was to have figured it out – this aircraft was impossible to figure out, so we would never understand it, and we were never going to understand it because we couldn't figure it out. It was as simple as that.

Clearly none of my teammates shared my views, because when I took my hands off of the blue table I was greeted with odd glances. I ignored them in favor of laughing at Tucker, who had picked up a cow. Jack scolded him for his gluttony, and they eventually agreed that takeout would be a good idea.

"Hey, hey hey!" Dylan warned Tucker as he lowered the UFO. "Watch the -" There was a sudden crack, and then some fizzing. "-light pole." Dylan finished, much too late. Tucker managed to settle the UFO down in the drive-thru area, and then handed the controls back to Zoom.

_"__Hello, welcome to Wendy's!" _The man on the speaker said. _"May I take your order, please?" _

Everyone started to shout out orders at once, cramming the machine's speaker and making the screen go blurry. It wasn't until Jack smacked it a couple times that the man on the other end was able to take our orders.

"What kind of toys do they have?" Cindy pouted on Jack's right side while Tucker chanted his order on his left.

"Ack," Jack raised his hands to quite them, frustration taking over his tone. "What kind of toys do you have?!"

Nevertheless, no one on the other end responded, and there was nothing but static again. So naturally Tucker and Cindy kept chanting their orders, and eventually it grew quite until Tucker added that he wanted six chocolate frosties. Everyone agreed, but then Tucker asked what everyone else was drinking. We all fixed him with disbelieving glances, unsure of why anyone would ever drink six frosties in one sitting.

"Forget it, Tucker." Jack lifted the UFO off of the ground and proceeded to the exit to pick up the food. "We're sharing. You only get two."

After collecting the food from some very distraught and disgruntled looking Wendy's employees, we made our way back to the base where, hopefully, Ms. Holloway wouldn't find out that we had been gallivanting around in an old spaceship. This could provide some interesting News Reports for the next month or so.

"Just go back and act like nothing happened." Jack reassured us as we exited the flying saucer. "We had a great day – let's just leave it at that, alright?"

We all nodded eagerly, clutching our food and munching away hungrily. It was nice of Jack to go out and buy us food like this – perhaps I had misjudged him after all. We _were _supposed to be training with him, but who said that you weren't allowed to indulge in a little snack break in a UFO every once in awhile?

"If I were you, Dylan, I'd disappear." Jack warned the boy behind me as he greeted Marsha with a sarcastic smile.

We left the garage to return to the safety of our quarters, eating our sandwiches in peace on the gaudy orange couches. The food was good – it was fresh, better than the weird cafeteria stuff that the scientist/chefs laid out daily. There was something to be appreciated from a full, warm meal. Wendy's certainly didn't come along everyday, and I could ditch my diet for a couple of hours just to taste the sweetness of a slushy.

"Do you actually like spicy chicken?"

My head turned at the question, facing the speaker who was inquiring about my sandwich choice. Dylan was playing with the straw of his drink, looking up at me from across the coffee table.

"Why would I have gotten it if I didn't like it?" I grinned at him in between bites, savoring the delicious meat.

Dylan shrugged. I held out my sandwich, offering for him to try something new for once, perhaps to see a different perspective. "God knows you need another point of view in your life." I berated.

Dylan reluctantly reached out and took the sandwich from my hands, giving it a concerned glance before taking a bite out of it. His eyes narrowed while he handed the food back to its rightful owner, letting his tastebuds do their work. I waited before chowing down again, wanting to see what he thought of the meat. After a while of chewing, he swallowed and raised a brow.

"Not bad."

"See, you would have never known if you didn't try." I finished the rest of my sandwich and collected our group's garbage to throw in the trashcan. Cindy and Tucker were away in their own little world playing with the toys they had gotten with their takeout.

I heard Dylan chuckle behind me, connecting the chicken sandwich situation to his own personal problems. I hadn't exactly meant for that to happen, but it was a plus that he was thinking about his life at home. It was always good to think about how to solve things that were going wrong. It was kind of like math – all you could try to do was solve the problem in front of you, and that was the way it was. There were no shortcuts sometimes, no easy ways out. And if there were, you would have to choose between the right way out and the easy way out. I wasn't sure what Dylan was going to pick just yet. I knew that he hadn't been the perfect son either – his feelings in the past ranged from guilt and shame to anger and betrayal, eventually leading to stone cold abomination. Several big things must have happened to make him feel this way, but I didn't want to trouble him any further, so I left him alone with his emotions and thoughts.

Picking up my duffel bag from its place on the bench, I traveled to the girl's change rooms with Cindy in tow. It was customary now that Cindy always needed to have someone with her, or else she would end up running off to god knows where on her own.

"Don't forget to floss." I called out to the little blonde girl.

"I already did!" She called back from the other side of the locker room, and I heard the pitter patter of her slippers hitting the ground. She appeared around the corner in a bunny onesie, ears sticking up out of her head. I merely gave her a smile, finishing my business and taking her hand to return to her room. I was used to her costumes by now. Upon arriving at our sleeping pods, I walked Cindy to her room and turned off the light for her, twisting the last ringlet in her hair for good measure. She was like a tiny little angel, and I felt something offbeat in my stomach when I glared at her perfect little face.

It was jealousy.

* * *

I woke up in a cold sweat, my sheets tangled around me and breath coming in short gasps. There was something very wrong – I felt like my chest was being suffocated and I couldn't get my legs free. Eventually I scampered out of my bed, heart still pounding a mile a minute. I couldn't slow down my breath for the life of me. This was absurd – I was in a base full of scientists and medics and I was having an episode? I had only been the recipient of panic attacks once before when I was very little and lost in the shopping mall. A lovely old lady had guided me to my mother, and the anxiety was over quickly. This was a very different situation. I didn't know where to go, I didn't know what to do. I was alone, stranded, abandoned, deserted, relinquished.

I tore open the door of my sleeping compartment and nearly fell to the floor, my entire body shaking so much that I barely had the strength to walk. I felt the tears before anything else, warming up the backs of my eyes and then slowly proceeding to the front where they made their appearance.

"Help…" I muttered, reaching the ground and curling into a ball. "HELP!" I repeated, realizing that no one had heard me. I didn't care who came out – as long as there was proof that I wasn't alone. As long as there was proof that I wasn't cast away or off, or a reject that had been given up and left in the cold to rot. Perhaps everyone had jilted me because I was an idiot that only knew how to pick up a pencil off of the ground. Perhaps they thought that I couldn't succeed in combat, that I was -

"Summer?"

I lifted my head, realizing that I had curled myself into a rocking mass on the floor, my breathing still coming thick and heavy. The speaker's voice was deep, leading me to believe it was Jack, but when I felt the strong arms lift me up against a warm chest with no flabby stomach, I realized it was Dylan.

"Hey, listen to me. Listen to my voice; just breathe."

I stumbled a bit, knees wobbly and panting subdued. Dylan steadied me, making sure that I didn't fall over, and we walked into his sleeping pod. It smelt of cologne and musk, something that I wasn't generally accustomed to considering I avoided stepping foot in my parent's room and never had a steady date.

One placed on the bed I curled up into an armadillo, folding my head in between my knees and trying to calm my breathing down. I felt Dylan pull me towards him, and I was soon encased in warmth. It took a couple seconds to realize he had draped his blanket over me. His arm was now rubbing steady strokes on my back, and amidst the rushing noise in my ears and the beating of my heart I could hear him uttering words of comfort. The fight or flight got so bad that at one point, my brain was trying to tell me to get up and sprint down the hallway, but I tried my very best to shut the little voice up and stayed buried in my own little ball of fear. Fear, apprehension, and fright all melted together in one big ball and was looming over me until I felt that I had cried out every tear that my body could possibly expel. It took awhile, but eventually my breathing slowed and the sobs grew less frequent.

I hadn't removed my hands from my face in the amount of time that the panic had taken place, but when I did I was greeted with dim lighting and Dylan kneeling in front of my spot on the bed. He wasn't speaking, but his eyes were wide and concerned. We sat and stared at each other for about a minute until I realized that he was stroking my thigh, resulting in fire lighting up behind my cheeks. He retracted once he realized that my brain was fully functioning once again, and handed me a glass of water. I smiled in recognition and gulped it down, grateful for the hydration in my dry throat.

"Does that happen often?" Dylan asked after a couple more beats of silence.

I shook my head, fingering the glass and coughing to the side. "Only once before."

He nodded, pursing his lips. "My mom used to get 'em."

My eyebrows curved, and I immediately sympathized. I wasn't too used to the attacks themselves, but I could imagine that receiving them frequently was more or less the definition of hell itself. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Dylan frowned.

"You're always saying that," I bit my lip, placing the glass of water on his nightstand. "You've got to let people feel stuff for you."

Dylan shot me an uncertain look, and I tried my best to make my smile as friendly as possible. It must have worked, because a minute later he was smiling as well. I covered my mouth to stifle a yawn, and he ushered me further under the covers. I tried to protest, but he insisted.

"I don't want you to feel alone."

I stopped struggling, accepting his explanation and feeling another smile spread across my face.


	4. Chapter 4

It was 9:00 AM, and we were all suited up in our protective gear to head down to the simulator. After my night in the pod with Dylan, the only complaint I had this morning was that the milk in my cereal had been at room temperature. We had each been relatively happy at breakfast, but you never knew what was going to happen at Area 52. The possibilities were truly endless.

We were ushered down a couple floors by a group of security guards until we reached two large double doors shielded by three scientists in white lab coats. Perhaps it was for a good reason, but I felt uneasy each time one of the researchers wrote something down on the clipboard. It was weird having someone pay such close attention to your every move; I was starting to understand why Dylan hated this place so much.

The double doors opened, leading us into a large dome-shaped room covered in thousands of tiny holes in its walls. The floor was padded, and in the centre lay a pedestal with a large red button in the middle. Now, perhaps it was unsafe to assume things in situations like these, but one could only guess that our objective was to press the blatantly obvious button marked by black and yellow hazard material.

"Welcome to our fully operational multi-platform J-1000 mission simulator." Dr. Grant's voice droned over the speakers, and I turned to find him, Jack and Dr. Holloway. "It is imperative that you learn to avoid enemy fire."

"So, what are the holes for?" Tucker spread his arms out, voicing what we were all thinking.

"It's funny you should ask that," Dr. Grant replied, turning to a man covered in bruises beside him. "That's the first question people ask. Uh, our technician is Dick…Dick?"

"The holes are for firing the paintballs." Dick muttered, not seeming interested in us whatsoever.

"All right," Dylan clapped his hands together once the sad man had finished explaining the dome. "I'm outta here."

I didn't blame him; the only reason I decided to stay was to make sure poor Cindy didn't get her eyeballs powered out by the paintballs.

"Uh," Dr. Grant seemed bored of Dylan's antics already. "We'll have to proceed without Mr. West."

Soon, the dome dimmed and there was a large whirring sound as the simulator fired up. Camo colored lights flashed across the white padding, and we began to spin as the floor moved in circles.

"Children, your goal is to stop the simulator by pressing that red button in the center."

"How hard can that be?" Cindy questioned, giving us a wide-eyed stare.

"I don't know." Tucker responded, giving us both a look of doubt before reaching for the button.

But just as he was about to press it, there was a flurry of colour from all the holes in the room, and we were bombarded with paintballs. It was madness; we were rolling everywhere to avoid the balls of suffering while at the same time trying not to trip over our own feet thanks to the moving floor. If this was our starting capacity, I couldn't imagine what we were going to get to in a couple of weeks. Several times one of us would reach for the shining red button, but get knocked down by one or two more paintballs. They moved in a pattern; you really needed to focus

After around an hour of rolling around without any progress, Dr. Grant stopped the simulation and let us out of the dome. We were reminded of our training that afternoon, which basically consisted of running on treadmills while even more researchers took notes. Afterwards, we were each to report for individual training, which for me, meant that I would have to endure at least forty five minutes of Jack letting me know that telekinetics were useless unless they could heavy lift.

"Are you working on attraction or repulsion?" He had questioned.

"Watch. Ready?" I spread my arms and gave the metal chair a determined look, willing it to move. Unfortunately, the chair reacted indifferently to my advances and flung itself towards me, catching me in the face.

"Shit!"

"That would be attraction." Jack corrected sarcastically, refusing to help me up.

I dusted myself off and flung the chair to the other side of the room, giving him a glare and exiting from the room.

The next day was filled with similar occurrings, mainly painful thanks to the paintballs, Cindy's need to dress up for every single occasion and Dr. Grant's 'Code Dylan'. I was getting concerned that Dylan would earn himself a permanent spot inside the isolation cell; he had told me that it was rather cold in those rooms, and all that they gave you was a ball for entertainment. It sounded worse than prison. There was some entertainment during the week, such as our lessons with the quirky Ms. Holloway, but for the most part we had to spend our afternoons with Dr. Grant. Who, while somewhat entertaining and funky in his own way, was a boring scientist nonetheless.

Finally, in the last hour of our Friday afternoon, we exited the J-1000 simulator covered in paintballs and our last shred of pride ripped from us. We had been examined and prodded all week, enduring the strangest of inspections and subdued to the most peculiar conditions to test our 'durability'. It was visible on our faces and our body language that we were pissed off with everyone around us, and didn't want to be bothered for the rest of the afternoon.

"That was ridiculous," I whined, brushing the last piece of paint off from my hands as Tucker, Cindy and I moved into our living quarters. Dylan was long gone; he usually disappeared the minute we were in sight of the showers.

"That was really bad." Tucker agreed.

Cindy climbed up on a couch, grinning widely. "I thought it was fun."

I fingered the zipper on my suit, laughing towards the little girl and watching her jump up and down on the couch as we all sat down.

"Hey guys," Jack made his way into the room, holding boxes of sweets. "I shook down our robot buddy, Mr. Pibb, and got you some snacks."

"I got mine already." Tucker glared coldly at Zoom. "Thanks."

Jack paid him no mind, instead looking around at the lot of us. "You guys look like modern art," He laughed heartily. "Come on, how'd you guys think the training went?"

"Oh please," I scoffed, tired of his façade. "Like you care."

"Hey," He retaliated. "Chill out a little bit. I'm not the one who dropped you off here at the military base, y'know."

"No, you didn't drop us off here, but you were supposed to teach us." I raised an accusatory finger towards him, my facial expression incredulous as I stood up to remove my jacket. "Thanks for all the training, _captain_. You don't care about us."

"She's right," Tucker noted my sarcastic tone and unleashed his own views. "I got hit with so many paintballs, I've got more bruises than skin!"

"Mr. Sheppard?" I turned around from my spot halfway across the room when I heard Cindy speak up.

"What?" Our 'mentor' barked gruffly.

"You care about us, right?"

Jack waited a couple moments before replying weakly. "I brought cake."

"Don't be fooled, Cindy. He only cares about himself." I threw my jacket down on the ground and held out my hand. "Come on, let's go get you cleaned up."

I ignored Jack's protests as we continued towards the showers, shooting him one last glare from behind while he tried to make peace. I wasn't going to take any more of his bullshit; it didn't matter what business he was here on, but it was unfair to waste our time while he stood by doing whatever he pleased.

* * *

"You sure you don't wanna come?" I leaned against the separator of Dylan's pod, cocking my head to the side.

He shook his head again, giving me a sad look. "I just wanna sleep."

"Alright," I smiled. "Feel better."

Truth be told, I wasn't sure that Dylan was ever going to get adjusted to Area 52. He had been spending more and more time in the isolation room, and I believed that all of the time alone was getting to him. We hadn't talked for a while, leading me to believe that he had lost interest, but his glances and touches in the training facility had proved otherwise each day.

"Let's go!" Cindy pulled me along as Tucker led us down the hallway. Since it was a Saturday, we had all decided (minus Dylan) that it would be a fantastic idea to explore the facility a little bit more. We had been so busy ever since arriving at the facility that we hadn't gotten to know the place at all. Tucker claimed that there was an ice cream vendor on one of the lower floors; so naturally with two kids in my responsibility this was our first objective.

We took the elevator down to the -5th floor, and stepped out only to find ourselves in a winding mass of hallways with, once again, researchers patrolling everywhere.

"I'm pretty sure the ice cream's this way." Tucker muttered as we crept around another corner.

Instead of the vendor that we had all been expecting, we were faced with two glass doors. One had the insignia of the Zenith Program, while the other read 'Outdoor Survival Simulator'.

"Outdoor survival simulator?" Cindy read, clearly confused and looking up towards me expectedly. I closed my eyes and willed the door to open, grinning in satisfaction when I heard the click seconds later.

"Sweet!" Tucker smiled. "This room is so cool."

We made our way into the room, glancing around at all the intricate buttons and computers that were laid out everywhere. The only times we had seen technology like this was from afar, when we were being tested with simulators that required lots of electricity.

"What's Dr. Grant doing in there?" Cindy narrowed her eyes at our familiar counterpart, who had his back to us and seemed to be working on an electrical outlet inside of a fake tree. The entire room was covered in shrubbery, the only indication of reality being the metal plating visible in several corners.

Suddenly, my eyes caught sight of the open door that lead into the simulator, and I patted Tucker. "Look."

His eyes followed my trail of sight, and he grinned widely. "Close the door!"

Once again, I willed the metal to follow my command, and slowly but surely, it began to shut. Unfortunately, Dr. Grant's ears picked up on the noise, and he turned to find us at the window.

"Kids!" He sounded extremely surprised, if not slightly worried that the door was closing on him. "Oh, very good. That's great. It's closing up. Keep it open just a…it's going…oh, no, it's go…no, no. It closed – uh, good job! Shouldn't you be in bed? Seriously – are you waiting for Peter Pan?"

His tone was joking, but it didn't take a fool to figure out that he was getting nervous. Many would have taken pity on the poor scientist, but hey – he had spent a week practically torturing us; we had every right to snap back a little!

"I'm just kidding around," Dr. Grant resumed his rambling, keeping one hand secure on the electrical outlet of the tree he had been working on. "Tucker! Could you back off the control panel a little bit? There are buttons on there I really don't want you to push – because -"

But it was too late, as Tucker had pressed the yellow button anyway and thunder clapped from inside the simulator. Rain began to pour down on Dr. Grant as the lights dimmed. He sputtered, taking off his glasses to wipe them as we all began to laugh wholeheartedly.

"I told you not to…" He muttered, interrupting himself. It was funny watching someone self-combust right underneath your eyes. "Why don't you listen to me?! Okay, that's it! Summer, I want you to open that door – I want the rain to stop right away, please! You're making me very angry children. This is not funny. This is not…"

Suddenly Cindy slapped one of the hazard buttons anyway and there was another clap of thunder as Dr. Grant was struck with lightning. There was a sheet of paper taped on the glass that read something about the voltage being turned down permanently, but I wasn't too sure that Cindy had found it in herself to care if Dr. Grant had been fried anyway. He began to shout unintelligible words in his fried clothing, making us laugh even more.

"Press another button, no! Do not push button!" He squirmed around in his spot, unable to move but still trembling with the effects of the electricity. "Nah! I told you, no button! If you…"

I pressed another one as soon as Dr. Grant mentioned the buttons, causing a large amount of snow to fall directly on top of the scientist. He appeared to completely lose it at this point, singing in a foreign language as he danced around in the snow.

"No more buttons…" He pleaded once he saw Tucker reach for the controls and press the tornado icon.

A large gust of wind began to blow throughout the simulator, making Dr. Grant hold his hat and close his eyes in frustration. Before he could notice and beg some more, I pressed the rockslide button and watched as the simulated mountain released some of its boulders on top of the scientist. He was knocked on his knees just as we caught sight of the last button, which Dr. Grant realized was the most potent one and the only one that we hadn't pressed.

"Do it, Cindy." I urged as the little girl removed the safety hazard glass paneling.

She and Dr. Grant exchanged several glances before the little girl took the chance and pressed down harshly on the 'skunk' function, resulting in the blaring of an alarm and a metal panel flipping around directly in front of Dr. Grant. Frozen in shock, he could do nothing but stare as the skunk popped up, turned, lifted its tail and sprayed its toxins directly in his face. He sputtered once, twice, and finally passed out on the snowy floor of the simulator.

We escaped from the control room as fast as possible, asking a guard along the way where the ice cream could be found. He directed us towards the -3rd floor, and we traveled there as quickly as we could to avoid any questions as to what the heck we were doing on the -5th floor. It wasn't until we had finally gotten our ice cream and reported back to our sleeping pods that we heard the announcement.

_'__Medical team to negative five, medical team to negative five, over.'_

I covered my mouth to stifle a laugh and gave Tucker what was left of my cold treat. Trusting that he could handle Cindy, I checked to see if Dylan was still in his pod. The boy had disappeared, mostly likely gone with Jack or in his isolation pod again. I sighed and retreated back to my pod, turning on my music and setting it to Ok Go. I knew that their music was somewhat outdated and old, but I enjoyed them nonetheless, and this was one of my favorite songs.

I found myself bopping along to the music, the feeling of elation that the music provided seeping into my bones and straight into my brain. Before I knew it I was dancing all around my pod, jumping up and down and shutting my eyes to forget everything else that was going on around me. I didn't care that the music was blaring or that I looked like an idiot – I was going to have some damned fun on my own.

_Oh here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again,_

_Oh here it goes again_

_I shoulda know, shoulda known, shoulda known again,_

_Oh, oh here it goes again_

_Here it goes again_

Suddenly, around halfway through the song, just when I had begun to get a cramp in my right side from my consistent movement, I was hit with a vision of Dylan. At the same time, there was a certain feeling that erupted from the back of my head; it felt like someone was watching me. I connected the dots fairly quickly, and used my own telepathy to search out the suspected source of intrusion. Unfortunately, the connection was broken just as abruptly as it began, and I was left with my music and thoughts once again.

* * *

"Summer, what's with the necklace?" Dylan pointed at the lonely silver chain hanging around my neck the next day, while we were all situated in the classroom waiting for Jack to show up for training.

I hadn't exactly been inclined to speak to him this morning, as I imagined that my embarrassment of being caught dancing would stop me from interacting at all, but as it turned out, nothing was stopping me. If only I had been this confident during school.

"Oh," I muttered, fingering my notebook. "It was the last thing my parents gave me before I left. I guess they couldn't handle my powers."

"Can I?" He approached cautiously, motioning towards the chain.

I leaned forwards, watching him cautiously as he took the chain in between his fingers to inspect it more closely. I didn't dare use my abilities at the moment; I was partially frozen in nervousness.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Holloway," A guard interrupted, causing Dylan to pull back. "We couldn't find him anywhere."

"Okay," She replied, slightly put out that no one had been able to find Jack that morning. It looked like we'd be without an instructor, _again. _"Thank you. Alright, well, we'll just have to proceed without Mr. Sheppard today." She began the lesson, fully intent on continuing the rest of the program without Jack, considering we'd all given up on him weeks ago and him not showing up to these things wasn't exactly big news. Dylan sat back down in his seat, and just when Holloway reached the front Jack burst through the door with an entourage of researchers.

"Hey, sorry I'm late," He grinned. "But I had to get my gang together. Make the measurements, guys – don't be afraid to tickle 'em."

Mr. Pibb made noises of approval while we all stared mesmerized at the new Jack. It was a surprise for all of us that he seemed to actually care for once. Dylan and I shared incredulous looks

"Well, anyway, kids, this is what we're going to do," Jack started. "We're gonna continue your physical training, along with your teamwork exercises, but to complement your internal strengths."

That was code for superpowers.

"When do we get names?" Cindy questioned, raising her hand again.

"We'll deal with that," Jack replied. "But right now, most importantly, I want to deal with the fundamentals, and there's two fundamentals; control and execution. Think about it. Control and execution."

His logic on that front was debatable, but I was willing to listen to him as long as he kept up this optimistic front. For someone with an inferiority complex, it was nice to see him take up such a positive role as a leader in our community.

And so, as we followed Captain Zoom out of the door, we were lead into a much more enthusiastic and encouraging week. There were several accomplishments just in the first day; Cindy managed to toss her deadweight right in the center of her target, Dylan's apple finally vanished, and Dr. Grant finished his super expanding fabric for Tucker. On the third day, we finally stopped the simulator at sixty percent capacity with barely any paint scrapes at all. It was a huge step forward; especially considering the staff down in the cleaning department had been expecting four uniforms to work on the entire night.

* * *

I grimaced, placing my hands on my hips and trying to stop myself from groaning once I realized that I didn't have anything to wear for the dance tonight. Jack had decided to throw a party in celebration of our hard work and success, and while I was all in favor of celebrating our teamwork, it was a bit of an issue for my wardrobe.

I ventured to Dr. Holloway's living quarters, knocking on her door and entering once I heard a small hum of approval.

"Anybody home?" I placed my hands on my hips, biting my lip at the woman who was ruffling through her wardrobe.

"Hi!" She grinned.

"Hey."

The scientist turned to face me. "Nothing to wear?"

"How'd you guess?" I cocked my head, approaching her slowly.

"Come here, maybe I have something for you." She ushered me forwards and handed me a dress a moment later. "There it is. I knew it was in here somewhere."

"Wow," I took the dress from her and feeling a smile creep up on my face. "Pretty. That's perfect – are you sure?"

"Oh yeah," She clasped her hands behind her back. "It's just one of many purchased for dates that never happened. Turned out to be lonely nights reading my comic books…in between the crying fits. It all started with my prom." She explained, causing a jolt of sympathy to run through me. It was sad, really, the teenage nerd-turned-scientist still somewhat stuck in her younger years.

"I always thought the prom queen should be the girl with the highest IQ." I changed the subject a bit, trying to make her feel better.

"Now that would make sense." She smiled, showing me out of her room. "I'll see you later!"

I waved and collected the dress in my hands, heading back into my living quarters. As I closed myself in my pod and began to change, I reflected on my past couple weeks at the Zenith facility. In the beginning I had felt sort of apprehensive about the whole situation, as I assumed the rest of the kids did, but now I could see the whole program coming together. With Jack actually positively reinforcing us, it may have provided the push we needed to complete the program.


	5. Chapter 5

"So where're you goin' dressed like that?"

"Why?" I looked up at Jack, alarmed at even the slightest chance that I looked like an idiot. "Do I look stupid?"

"No," He reassured me, laughing. "You look nice."

There was an awkward beat of silence as him and Ms. Holloway stared me up and down, but Dylan, who had cleaned up rather nicely, broke the moment. I was grateful for his intrusion; there was only so much adult I could take in a day.

"Hey," I moved towards my friend, glad to talk to him one on one after all the commotion this week. "You like it?" I motioned to my dress, twirling in a mock circle.

"Yeah, you look beautiful." He smiled and playing with a tiny blue disc in his hands. "Um, I thought your necklace looked a little bare, so I made this for you in R and D."

I grinned like a Cheshire cat once he moved to place the disc on my necklace, and let it slide down the chain. No one had ever made anything for me – specifically for me, that is. It felt good to be acknowledged, appreciated and cared about. I was used to the rationale that everyone around me was repulsed by me no matter what, so this moment was going to stick with me forever.

"For everything I see in you, and everything I don't." He blinked, biting the inside of his lip. "I think your powers are wonderful."

"I'm not that wonderful." I scoffed, my self-confidence issues bubbling over. "I mean, I just hope you're not disappointed with what you do or don't see from here."

"As long as I get to keep looking," Dylan grabbed my hand. "I guarantee you I'll never be disappointed."

This caused my grin to resurface, and we drifted to the dance floor, wrapping our limbs around each other and rocking to the beat of the song. I had never really liked Enrique Iglesias, but I could understand the reason behind why so many people like his song 'Hero' at this particular moment; I literally felt like praising Dylan for taking interest in an ugly duckling like myself. That in itself was something that people needed to rejoice over...that was all I could say. Thank God for Dylan.

"How's your week been?" I asked, not wanting the silence to turn even the slightest bit awkward in fear of losing his interest. I was running on the belief that perhaps further on along in the relationship he would realize how awful I was and abandon me.

"I spent all of Thursday in isolation," Dylan muttered, frowning a bit. "But Friday was good."

"Yeah," I agreed, smiling. "It was good."

"Today is pretty good, too." He grinned slyly, and I found myself giggling like a twelve-year-old girl. Maybe, just maybe...there was a slight chance that this boy would stick with me.

Just as Dylan was opening his mouth to say something else, Larraby's gnarly tone interrupted the festivities.

"What the hey is going on here?!" The old military captain shouted. "This room is off limits!"

"Hey, come on your highness – calm down! You're going to have a stroke." Jack teased, walking over to him. "Look, have a drink; the kids are just having fun."

"The kids wanna have a little fun?" Larraby looked to us amidst the rush of scientists trying to clean the room up before they were yelled at. "I like to have fun – kids, let's take a 10 mile-run!"

Jack rolled his eyes, giving up on the official and turning to Dr. Grant and Marsha, who were no help. Instead, they were instructed to usher us out of the room and back to our pods, where we had to get our 8-hour sleep for a long day tomorrow. Considering the big machines Larraby's staff had been wheeling in when we were leaving, I could only assume the worst.

"Hey, Dylan," I nudged the older boy before he could disappear inside his sleeping pod. "Thanks for…thanks for everything."

I had originally meant to thank him just for the necklace, but upon realizing that he had given me so much more and been such a kind date, I wanted him to feel acknowledged. Apparently he understood perfectly, because before I knew it he was grabbing my wrists and pulling me towards him. I didn't know if Tucker and Cindy were already in their pods, but for once I couldn't find it in myself to care and allowed myself to be dragged into submission.

Dylan slammed the door of his pod shut, grabbing me by the waist and lifting me up to connect his lips to mine. My legs wrapped themselves around his waist, arms nimbly coming to rest around his neck without a second thought. It was strange; when I was with Dylan my body seemed to move of it's own accord. Perhaps it was a sign of comfort or trust, but either way I felt completely at ease around him. Our bodies flowed, moving together without any sign of fear or distrust. There was only passion and compassion.

"I've liked you since the day I saw you at school." Dylan muttered in between kisses, brushing a hand to clear the hair out of my face and then immediately placing it back on my thigh.

"I – what, really?" I was a bit taken aback by his statement, not planning on receiving such a flattering comment.

He nodded, swallowing visibly and walking us towards his bed. "I think you're fucking gorgeous. And I'm gonna apologize in advance if this comes out as offensive in any way – but I really just wanna make you feel good."

His dropped to a lower tone in the last part of his sentence, my irises expanding at the sight of his jet black pupils and voice. Once plopping me on the covers and laying me down so that he was horizontal, he started to pepper kisses up and down my throat, biting into one particularly harshly and leaving a purple colored bruise.

"Then what are you waiting for, West?" I laced a hand in his hair and pushed him downwards, grinning when I felt him begin to undo the button on my jeans.

* * *

"Come on, gorgeous, hop up, sleeping's for whimps – whoa, what are you two doin' in here?"

I was woken to the sound of Jack's voice and an immense amount of light shining in my face amidst the darkness. I was still bundled in Dylan's embrace, last night's events leaving us vulnerable to whomever came to wake us up the next morning. This, unfortunately, turned out to be Captain Zoom.

"Oh boy – I hope you two used protection." He grumbled, going to wake up Cindy and Tucker. "C'mon - up!"

I dropped my head back into Dylan's shoulder, groaning in humiliation and exhaustion. The last thing that I wanted to have happen was Jack wake me up after a night with a boy that actually cared about me, (especially not one that just wanted to use my vagina as a temporary pit of pleasure). Speaking of which, I was still rather sore in between my legs.

"Good morning." Dylan grumbled, laying a kiss on my forehead and going to grab his clothing. I did the same, both of us stumbling around in the dark and occasionally bumping into each other. After a couple of minutes, we reunited with the others in our 'protective gear' (Cindy wouldn't give up the costume) and were lead up to the 9th floor by Jack.

"What are you dressed as," Jack complained to Cindy, pointing at her costume. "Super poodle?"

She simply wiggled her tail in response.

We passed even more stacks of spare dead weights, and followed Jack towards the back of a storage area where lots of cleaning supplies were stacked. Thankfully there were only one or two guards patrolling the floor at this time, so when Dylan started to complain in his deep baritone, none would be the wiser.

"Where are we going?" He rubbed his eyes and groaned loudly when Jack shushed him, opening an electrical panel. "Oh, neat! An electrical panel!" He whispered sarcastically.

Jack looked around behind us to make sure that no one was coming, and then opened a latch behind all the wires.

"It's a secret electrical panel!" Tucker exclaimed, as if he had found a treasure.

"Quiet!" Zoom spat, turning around. It appeared that he had stepped inside of a giant room hidden from the rest of the floor, bathed in yellow light and steam coming from all corners. "Come on."

"I'm tired," Dylan yawned again, gripping my waist as we all followed Zoom through the panel. "Let's go back to bed."

I found myself grinning again.

Tucker took his turn at Zoom. "I'm hungry."

"I'm cold." That was Cindy.

"Stop whining. Superheroes don't whine." Jack turned to look at us.

"Where are we?" Yet another question from a very tired Dylan.

"We're someplace where the cameras won't see us." He shone his flashlight up at the ceiling, revealing several different names up on the wall. They included 'Ace', 'Marksman', 'Zoom', 'Concussion' and 'Daravia'.

"Woah," I reared my head back to look at the multicolored symbols. "What is this?"

"Are we getting our names?" Tucker asked, growing excited.

Cindy jumped up and down, high fiving him. "Finally, we get names – yes!"

"Wait, I thought you said names didn't matter." Dylan grew accusatory.

"All right, all right, I was mistaken." Zoom raised his hands in defense, making his way back towards us. "You want names, you've gotta have names. Uh, Chubby will now be called…'The Incredible Bulk'."

"Chubby?" There were choruses of protest as Jack named each of us something worse than the next.

I was dubbed 'Mental Chick', while Cindy was unfortunately given 'Strong Girl' and Dylan had to endure 'Invisitine'. We all rolled our eyes at Jack's awful efforts of names and went by naming ourselves.

"No, come on," Dylan took control of the situation, grabbing Tucker's shoulder. "You're 'Mega-Boy' – whaddya call me?"

"'Houdini'." Tucker nodded once, satisfied with his name.

"'Houdini'?" Jack grimaced.

"Yeah, you know?" Tucker bit his lip, looking around uncertainly as if waiting for us to rebuke against his idea. "He's always escaping and stuff."

To his surprise, we all agreed wholeheartedly, and his eyes shone temporarily with the joy that could only be described as relief. It seemed to me that Tucker was used to people's rejection and humiliation, which was truly a pity because his personality and humour and general sense of being cast a ray of sunshine wherever he walked. Perhaps now he could begin to find the confidence and self-awareness he needed to take control of those situations he was feeling pressured in.

"'Princess'!" Cindy barked, placing her hands behind her back and showing off her pearly whites.

"'Princess'." Jack confirmed, not protesting at all.

"And she's 'Wonder'." Dylan pointed at me.

"Aw, thanks." I smiled at him, putting a hand on my hip. Again, I was reminded why I was so attracted to him in the first place.

"All right, I give up – you guys wanted to name yourselves, you've named yourselves." Jack looked around at all of us. One by one, we each placed our hands in the center and confirmed what we wanted to be called. 'Princess', 'Houdini', 'Mega-Boy' and 'Wonder' – all united.

"Now we're a team!" Dylan grinned.

"Now we're a family." Jack slapped his hand on top of ours as we stared at him curiously. "And we're gettin' outta here – I'm takin' you some place safe tonight."

Tucker frowned. "But we're heroes now!"

"And we have names and everything!" Cindy's bright blue eyes looked up at him, not understanding. Truth be told, I didn't know what was going on either; I had suspected that Larraby was probably going to drill us hard today, but I didn't see any real threat.

"I know you do – you have names, you're heroes," Jack continued. "But I think it'd be safer if we just got out of here. Take the FE-12, we can use that and -"

Suddenly, Dylan collapsed from his spot beside our mentor and sat back against an old led pipe.

"I'm in a hallway," His voice had turned distant, and I realized that for the first time I was witnessing the act of clairvoyance. This must have been what I was feeling him do when he had caught me dancing last week. "Okay, now, I'm in a control room."

"What do you see?" Jack asked, kneeling besides him.

"I see Dr. Grant and Larraby."

"Please tell me they're wearing women's dresses." Jack tried to lighten the mood, and it succeeded for a second in making me smile before my eyes made contact with Dylan's face again. The somber expression took any hint of happiness away from me whatsoever, and at this point in time I realized what it meant to care for someone. To care meant that when the other person wasn't happy – you weren't happy. To care meant that when the other person was suffering, you were willing to do anything in your power to help.

"There's frozen images on a screen -" Dylan paused, coming out of his passage. "I know what they're training us for! Your brother! He's alive – he's coming back!"

"That's impossible." Jack shook his head slightly before getting up and running towards the exit. "Stay outta sight!" He tossed the flashlight to Dylan, disappearing out of the electrical panel in the wall.

* * *

After half an hour of waiting and sketching our new names on the wall beside the old Zenith team, Dylan shook his head. "He's not comin' back. We've gotta go."

"He told us to stay here!" Tucker argued, but I frowned in disagreement.

"Something's wrong – he would have come back if he could've." I grabbed Cindy by the hand, and we all exited the secret room.

"Let's go."

Minutes later, we were back in the sleeping pods and after my proposal of getting our bags ready to go, had our duffels packed. It was unknown whether Jack was coming back or not, but if he was we had no intention of staying in this place for long.

We all reconvened on the couch near Dylan, who was trying to see if he could find anything with his mindsight. It took him a couple of minutes, but after a while he pulled back with a huff of air and sat there staring into space.

"What'd you see?" I nudged him on the shoulder gently, afraid of backlash.

He sighed and swallowed loudly and without looking me in the eyes. "They're prepping the Gamma 13."

Him and Tucker moved to the opposite side of the room, saying their farewells. If it was true that they were preparing the radioactive machine, we would all surely die. There was a very minimal survival rate, so it was no surprise that the boys were sharing their last words. I wasn't going to say anything to Cindy; I didn't want to be the bearer of such bad news to a six year old.

"Ms. Holloway will stop them, won't she?" Cindy approached me, nervously wringing her hands together.

"I don't know, Cindy." I was partially shell-shocked. "I don't know."

Just then, the air pressured door burst open, and Ms. Holloway stepped into the room followed by six guards. My eyebrows rose in astonishment at the amount of security that had suddenly been amped up. Did they really think we were that dangerous? We were just a bunch of kids! Which, for the record, was another reason why they shouldn't have been pumping us full of radioactivity in the first place. I was fairly certain that this was in direct violation of several laws in the state of Nevada.

"Well," She looked around at our faces, gathering that we already knew the news. "I'm afraid it's time."

I sighed in disappointment, ushering Cindy out of the room to walk beside Tucker. I wasn't sure that she had her head wrapped around exactly what was going on, but it was likely that she had a fairly good idea, and she would feel better either way if she was beside her friend.

"I'm so sorry about this. Truly." Ms. Holloway repeated for the third time as we walked down the corridor escorted by the security staff, dog tags clinking and faces sour.

"It's okay, we're used to being used." I replied, sick of this whole facility. I felt fingers tug at my hand, and suddenly my right paw was enveloped in warmth. It was Dylan, who wasn't even making eye contact with me. Yet when he held his hand in mine, I felt that things were going to turn out ok. I felt safe. I felt loved.

"I know there's nothing I can do to make this up to you," She continued, making me want to scream. "Except possibly…"

Suddenly there was a 'whooshing' noise, and two of the security guards behind us were blown away. Our training reflexes caught on quickly, and I propelled the four remaining security guards away from our group, causing Dylan to reflexively disappear and Tucker to inflate, bashing the last two guards against the wall. Marsha had seemingly turned rogue and decided to involve herself in actively freeing us from the premises.

"That was awesome." Dylan grinned, spreading his hands out.

"Let's go!" Marsha ushered us out of the corridor, eager to get out of the place. "We have to find Jack!"

"Isolation pens!" Dylan led the way, more than knowledgeable about their location.

When we reached the area, I was given the go-ahead to clear the guard away from the area, so I approached with caution. Usually the security in the pens carried Tasers, so I didn't want to get too close.

"Can I help you, Miss Jones?" The security guard sitting at the desk walked over to stand in front of me, reaching for something on his belt. It was then that I decided it would be a good idea to propel him towards the ceiling, slapping him face first against the concrete ceiling. He would be stuck there for awhile; my telekinetic hold could last for hours even if my body had long left the area.

"Man, that is so hot." Dylan came up behind me and grinned.

"You think so?" I placed my hands on my hips, squishing the staff member further against the ceiling. He let out a muffled groaned, and promptly fell unconscious, limbs drooping. At this sight I felt a rush of endorphins, drunk off of the feeling that I could hold such a force - exert such power over a weak link.

"Woah, hey! Not bad -" Tucker complimented once he had caught sight of the guard. "Nice work! Hasta luego, man."

"Thanks!" We passed the unconscious man and proceeded to check each isolation cell for any signs of our lost mentor.

"I'll check this one!"

"I think he's…"

"Where is he?"

"I think he's over here."

"No no –" Dylan had already cracked the code on the security computer and found Jack's cell, walking over to it. "He's right here. Hey!" He called through the door. "Hey, did somebody call for a rescue party with extra cheese?"

"Hey," Jack's voice answered back from the other side. "It's about time! Open this damn door."

"You wanna do the honours?" Dylan motioned for Cindy to go ahead, and she promptly punched the door right in Jack's face. He landed flat on his back, the heavy material squishing him in between the floor.

"Hey, maybe something like uh – 'stand back, we're about to break the door down' could have been tossed out," He muttered, sounding extremely confined. Once we lifted the door off of him, he glared around at all of us. "You know, there's a little green button to the left that says 'open'?"

From behind us, Mr. Pibb let out a mechanical laugh.

"You alright?" Tucker helped the man up, and he nodded his head.

"Yeah," Jack frowned when he caught sight of Ms. Holloway. "Wait, why is she here?"

"No, it's cool!" I assured him. "She's one of us."

"Whaddya mean, she's one of us?" He quoted, still angry and suspicious.

"She blows." Tucker clarified.

"Yeah, _I know_."

I slapped a hand on my forehead; Jack didn't understand this at all, did he?

"No, I mean, she _blows_! C'mon, show him!" Tucker motioned for Marsha to demonstrate her abilities.

Marsha stepped a couple feet away from Jack and began to shoot her super powered gust of breath towards him. It was a strange power, I could give her that, but it was amazing that her lungs had adapted to expel such powerful bouts of air. Like before, it came in handy in times of struggle. I almost laughed imagining her fighting off her offenders with super rainbow breath. It seemed like something straight out of a kids movie, or the long-lost child of Storm from X-Men and Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony.

"Wait, so you have powers?" Jack was confused, and rightfully so.

"Yeah," Marsha smiled, pausing the gust. "Remember I was kind of a weird child? That's why I came here."

"Why didn't you say so?" The side of Jack's mouth curved upwards. "This is great news! You're part of the family!"

"Uh, dudes -" Dylan interrupted, hearing a boom in the distance. "Escape, remember?"

We fled towards the hanger where the FE-12 was contained, running into several researches on our way who had absolutely no idea what was going on. As soon as Mr. Pibb opened the doors, there was a blaring of alarms, and we were forced to double our pace.

"Dylan!" Jack called, tossing the older boy the remote to the UFO. "Open it up!"

Dylan obeyed, opening the hatchet and gently pushing us inside. Mr. Pibb waited for his turn beside him, and I found myself worried about leaving them down there together. A pang of anxiety rose in my stomach as Dylan sent us up, and our eyes connected before the walls of the UFO separated us.

"Summer, get us outta here!" Ms. Holloway instructed as we rose to the main floor of the aircraft.

I ran over to the three circular panels that controlled the main functions of the vehicle, finding that they were horribly malfunctioned. Someone had tampered with them – most likely someone that didn't want the aircraft leaving Area 52. The first ring system was connected to the engine of the UFO, the second connected to the control and the third controlled the transmissions. All three of them needed to be fixed; otherwise the ship couldn't function properly.

"This is all wrong," I muttered, beginning to place the tiny square panels in all three of the systems back in place. "This goes there, and that, there."

The alarm was still blaring when Mr. Pibb and Dylan raised themselves into the vehicle, and I found myself working faster once I knew they were safe.

"Summer!" Ms. Holloway urged when the familiar sound of the hanger doors closing could be heard above us.

"We're hot to go!" I grinned; finishing the last system and watching the lights turn from red to blue.

"Great!" We were all fairly positive for a second before remembering that we were missing a member of the team. "What about Jack?"

Tucker took a hold of the controls, tilting the aircraft sideways when he realized that the doors were shutting and this would be our last chance of leaving. When Jack rolled into the ship a second later, everyone let out a sigh of relief - no one was willing to share with him that we had been ready to abandon him not even a second ago.

We burst out of the side of the mountain where Area 52 resided; raising our speed to the highest caliber it could attend to and set our course for the portal where Concussion was due to come out of.

"You've gotta drop me off here and take the kids someplace safe." Zoom commanded once we drew near to the site.

"We're not leaving you!" Ms. Holloway argued.

"Well, then, wait here – at least do that; wait for me. Let me talk to my brother. This is between him and me." He pushed.

"But we're a family!" Cindy protested.

"Believe me," Jack uttered dramatically as he was lowered down the hanger. "I know what I'm doing."

Mr. Pibb buzzed in worry as Ms. Holloway sighed, placing a hand on her forehead. She dug around the ship for a while, seemingly searching for something, and finally pulled out a package from one of the floor panels. I was reminded of the secret compartments in the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.

"Put these on." She instructed, handing Cindy a helmet. We all frowned before realizing that these were our specialized suits that Dr. Grant had been working every so hard on. "If he doesn't come back in ten minutes, I say we go out there."

We all agreed, and I turned to Mr. Pibb. We would need a distraction before then, and I had a good idea. "Mr. Pibb," I began, my tone pleading. "Jack's out there all alone – he needs our help! Will you distract Concussion? Please?"

Mr. Pibb buzzed in denial, and my shoulders sank before I found myself gripping Dylan's necklace and spreading my brainwaves out. Before I knew it I was deep inside the robot's machinery and circuits, forcing him to give me a positive answer. It was dirty pool and I knew it, but one way or another we were going to have to use the little machine to our advantage.

We lowered him down the hatchet where he reunited with Concussion, but after several minutes Ms. Holloway grew worried and shoved us all down the hatch. It was apparently just in time too, as Concussion was just about ready to blow poor Mr. Pibb away. This was the time that we chose to run out from behind the rocks and face Jack's older brother, causing Jack to roll his eyes.

"What is this," Connor teased, visibly shaking with annoyance in his burnt up old Team Zenith suit from another realm. "Attack of the pre-schoolers?"

"These kids, they don't know what they're doing, Connor." Our mentor spread his hands out, trying to reason with the red-eyed villain. "This is between you and me."

"So this is the new team, huh?" Concussion continued to make fun of us as Cindy ran forwards to try and join Zoom. "You just run up to the bad guy now, all willy-nilly? Is that how it goes?"

"Cindy, go back!"

"Cindy!" I called out, trying to reach her. Dylan grabbed my arm, holding me steady. At the moment I was torn between fighting him off or potentially risking my life to go save Cindy, and it didn't look like I was going to have time to make a choice, because before I knew it there was a strange sound coming from the area where the Area 52 staff had set up camp. A large net was coming our way, looking like something out of a Matrix movie. It propelled towards Concussion, who blew it towards Cindy with no problem at all.

"CINDY, RUN!" I screamed, sprinting towards the little girl and fighting to protect her at any cost. Dylan followed, pulling me back yet again. I began to protest until I realized that Zoom had begun to shake violently, almost buzzing with energy. Then, abruptly, he sped towards Cindy at the speed of sound, a large boom erupting from where he stood before. Conner was blown back a couple of feet, giving us extra time.

"I knew it!" Marsha smiled as Zoom looped back safely with Cindy. "I knew you hadn't lost your powers!"

"I guess I just needed a reason to use 'em." Zoom smiled, wrapping an arm around Cindy and looking around at all of us.

"Jack, I'm sorry," Dylan started to apologize. "You were right, man – we weren't ready."

"Yeah, yeah. C'mon," Jack waved a hand. "You read the comic books. Superhero secret; first plan never works. You guys remember the baseball plan?"

We all nodded as Jack began to go over it again, but was interrupted by his brother, who we had momentarily forgotten.

"It that it?! Is that all you got?" He was furious, showering tank after tank with blasts of concussion.

"Stand back – no no no!" Jack stopped us all from rushing towards his brother. "Everybody get back!"

We watched as Concussion wreaked havoc on the military of Area 52, blasting each tent and helicopter until nothing was left but men coughing and dusting rubble. He was caught up in his own world, so Zoom took the time to use his supersonic speed to run back to Area 52 and grab his polycarbonate silicone suit – something that I remembered him mentioning a while ago.

"Let's play ball." He nodded towards us once the dust had cleared and he was back in the same spot that he had left just thirty seconds ago.

We all parted ways, familiar with the plan that Jack had briefed us with in our last week of training. It consisted of basically playing baseball with whatever target the Zenith team would face; and using the enemy as the ball. If played out correctly, there was a seventy five percent chance of success. This was good enough, considering our plan A of Cindy beating him up hadn't exactly worked.

Speaking of the little girl, she had run to one corner of the barren field where Connor's portal had arrived, and had picked up a large satellite transmitter from its post, ready to act as a bat in our baseball plan. Marsha was standing guard on the far end of the portal that Zoom was creating by running in rapid circles (this would somehow erase all damaging side effects of the Gamma-13 emissions in Connor's brain), and Dylan was already laying punches into Connor. I began to pull the largest boulders possible from the mountainside, hurling at him as well. He defended himself as best as possible, but it was too late, because Tucker was already positioned behind him.

Mega-Boy tapped Concussion on the shoulder and uttered a simple greeting of 'hi!' before inflating his stomach, propelling Connor towards Cindy's bat and acting as a pitcher. Unfortunately, when Cindy swung and tried to hit him directly into Zoom's vortex, he was swung out of the way and missed by a tiny fraction.

"Oh no!" Cindy slammed her bat to the ground in frustration, causing the whole valley to shake. "He's gonna miss!"

Ms. Holloway, who had seen the whole ordeal, powered up her breath and began to blow in Connor's direction, who was screaming vehemently to be let down from his spot in midair. The evil brother was spun into Zoom's portal, and at this point there was nothing left to do but wait. We gathered again at a safe distance, watching as Concussion tried to force his way out of Zoom's vortex with his red waves. Over and over again Connor tried to blast his way out of the portal only to be stopped by the closing of the vortex seconds later.

There were two more large explosions, and then Zoom stopped running. The clearing of green dust provided us with the sight of Connor laying in the middle of the valley, right where he had appear in the first place. He woke with a start, visibly shaken and disorientated. The first thing I noticed was his eyes, which had turned a stunning blue.

"Connor!" Zoom called, rushing towards his fallen brother, who looked on with uncertainty. Boy – was I ever familiar with that emotion. "The vortex worked this time – maybe you can use your powers for good."

"I'm sorry, Jack." We're the only words that the man in red uttered as he stood up on wobbly legs.

"Give your little brother a hug, come on." They embraced, and Jack pulled him towards the rest of us. "I got my brother back!"

"Yeah! We did it!" Cindy jumped up and down while Tucker gave her a high five.

"Now _that's _what I call teamwork." He applauded.

"Connor, this is Dylan." Jack started to introduce each one of us as we stepped forwards to shake his hand.

"Welcome to the family, brother." Dylan shook his hand, and Connor seemed to have no qualms about being punched in the face by the taller boy.

"This is Marsha," The women stepped forwards to kiss him on the cheek, and Connor introduced himself to Cindy, then to me, and then to Tucker. The only thing that made me slightly nervous to have Connor join our team was that he seemed to have an explosive side to him (pun intended), but as long as his brother was here, I had a feeling that everything was going to be okay. A lesson that I had come to learn day after day at Area 52 was that somehow, in some bizarre way, things had an impeccable way of sorting themselves out.

"Somebody's gonna have to drive on the way back," Zoom began, walking all of us towards the UFO. "We've got the FE -"

"Can I?" Cindy interrupted. "Can I drive?"

"Can she drive?" Zoom looked towards me for confirmation.

"Yeah," I nodded, wrapping a hand around Dylan's waist who in turn wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "She can drive."

"We got the FE-12 running again – remember the old saucer from back in the day?" Jack grinned at his brother.

"Oh yeah!" Connor smiled, reminiscing about the days of the past. "Where is it? I can't believe that piece of junk still works."

"Hey," Dylan turned to me, laughing softly. "Guess what we forgot to do?"

"What?" I scrunched my face up in confusion.

"Go on that date." He laughed whole-heartedly now, and I joined in once I remembering his request from months ago. We really _had _forgotten, hadn't we?"

"Hold it, Zoom!" Larraby's voice rang out from the other end of the valley, and we turned to find pretty much the entire U.S Army, him and Dr. Grant staring at us walking off into the distance. Zoom closed the gap between them and him fairly quickly, questioning Larraby's advances. They exchanged a couple quick words, and Zoom eventually backed off, taking Dr. Grant in his wake. Larraby did nothing as we walked off into the distance, searching for our ride back to the base.

I guess he was just in wonder.


End file.
